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SHOES AND RATIONS 
FOR A LONG MARCH 



SHOES AND RATIONS 
FOR A LONG MARCH 

OR 

NEEDS AND SUPPLIES 
IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 



BEING SERMON - GROWTHS FROM AN 
ARMY CHAPLAIN'S TALKS IN CAMP 
AND FIELD AND PRISON AND AT HOME 



By H. CLAY TRUMBULL 

Former Regimental Chaplain United States Volun- 
teers ; Author of "The Knightly Soldier," "War 
Memories of an Army Chaplain," "Studies in Oriental 
Social Life," "The Blood Covenant," etc. 

, > ' '> J , > ? 

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NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 

1903 






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TWU Curiae (tfetlf^VtS) 
OoovT*fr»u^ enrrtrV 

CLA3;? ^ ".'r? :io. 

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COPY 8, 



Copyright, 1903, 

BY 

H. Clay Trumbull. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

How These Sermons Came to Be Preached ... i 

I 
A Shoe Sermon 7 

II 
A Sermon on Thirst 27 

III 
Gain of Godliness 51 

IV 
Universal Longing for Jesus 73 

V 
A Seed Sermon 93 

VI 
Character Surely Disclosed 117 

VII 
My Chaplaincy Among Students 143 

VIII 
Importance of a Head to a Soldier 185 

V 



vi Contents 

■'■•^ PAGE 

Danger of Counting Conscience a Safe Guide. . 215 

X 

Duty of Making the Past a Success 239 

XI 
Trusting Better Than Worrying 257 

XII 
Peril and Power Through Temptation .... 281 

XIII 
Victorious in Death and in Life . 301 

XIV 
Rejoicing in Peace 327 



HOW THESE SERMONS CAME 
TO BE PREACHED 

As I was never called to have the help or the 
hindrances of training in a divinity school or a theo- 
logical seminary, no sermons of mine will show the 
characteristics of one who was thus trained. I was 
ordained as a clergyman when called, while a layman, 
to be a regimental chaplain in the Civil War. My 
work of preaching was the work of addressing my 
fellow-men on subjects in which they and I had an 
interest in common. I had never taken any lessons 
on the best way of preparing a sermon, or of preach- 
ing one. Whatever of practical experience I had had 
that might be of service to me in such preparation, 
had been obtained in political speaking " on the stump," 
and in talks in Sunday-school conventions and at 
neighborhood religious gatherings. 

My chief service and training in political speaking 
had, indeed, been in the early days of the Republican 
party, when the issue was simple, and when personal 
feeling on both sides was intense. The main question 
at that time was, Shall slavery be permitted to extend 
into territory now free, or must it be resisted at any 
and every cost ? I learned then to strive to make my 
every appeal and argument and word tell on that 



2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

single point, every time I spoke. This was the main 
thought in my homiletics of then. I did not, in those 
days, try to make a finished discourse. I did try to 
show electors how they ought to vote. 

In consequence of this preliminary training, or this 
lack of such training, my sermons were naturally un- 
conventional, and not conformed to the standards pre- 
vailing in training-schools for clergymen. This is 
true of those sermons written and preached after, as 
during, the war. I never did, nor could I ever, preach 
a sermon except as a truth or a message possessed 
me which I desired to have possess those before 
whom I stood. In many cases a sermon preached 
under peculiar circumstances in army-life was re- 
shaped and preached repeatedly in home life in later 
years. But the spirit and method were much the same 
in both places and cases, even though the phrasing 
and the chosen illustrations might be different be- 
cause of the different hearers and circumstances. 

Had my sermons been a formal treatment of a sub- 
ject, or of a truth, I might have shared the feeling of 
a well-known clergyman who said he would "as soon 
take an emetic as preach an old sermon." But as I 
never preached unless a message possessed me as so 
important that I wanted to repeat it and re-repeat it, 
so long as there was need of its being heard, my in- 
terest in a special message grew as the truth grew on 
me. If I saw a neighbor's house on fire in the night, 
I should want to cry " Fire, Fire," and I should 
want to repeat that cry so long as the danger existed 



How these Sennons Came to be Preached 3 

and helpers were not yet aroused. My danger-calls 
from the pulpit were comparatively few, but a sense 
of the importance of each one of them grew on me 
steadily. This will account for the characteristics 
of these sermons, as from the standpoint of the army 
chaplain, and even those sermons which were preached 
in the home camp. 

Three of my sermons, as preached to my regiment 
on special occasions, were, at the request of the officers 
and men, published during the war. These and other 
army sermons are described in the chapter entitled 
** A Chaplain's Sermons," in my volume, " War Mem- 
ories of an Army Chaplain " (published by Charles 
Scribner's Sons, New York). 

My preaching as an army chaplain inevitably shaped 
and influenced all my sermons preached since that 
day. Wherever I was as a preacher, my training and 
my chaplain experiences caused me always to con- 
sider myself as an army chaplain talking to soldiers 
of their personal duties and needs. 

Because some valued friends, both lay and clerical, 
have repeatedly urged me to publish a selection from 
these sermons, as illustrative of the spirit and method 
of such work, I have now decided to do so. And in 
accordance with the suggestion of the same friends, 
I have prefaced some of the sermons with a statement 
of the circumstances under which they were originally 
written, together with facts as to their later use. 

As here given, these sermons are fuller and more 
extended than as preached at any one time. lUustra- 



4 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

tions, paragraphs, or sections were omitted in their 
preaching, so as to bring them within proper limits. 
But the discourses are now given in their entirety, 
so as to show the richer possibilities of the subjects 
treated. 

H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 



Philadelphia, October 2j, i^oj. 



A SHOE SERMON 



A SHOE SERMON 

On one of our Union army marches along the 
roads of North Carolina, in 1862, I was made to 
realize as never before the importance of easy and 
durable shoes as a means of giving soldiers comfort 
and efficiency. Some of the new regiments at that 
time were provided, at private expense, with costly 
and attractive-appearing calf-skin shoes, that fitted 
closely the feet of the soldiers. These looked well 
on the city streets or in the camp. They seemed to 
be very fine, for a time, in contrast with the rough and 
coarse army shoes of the veteran soldier. But when 
worn on a long march, over roads of clay or sand, 
they made the swelling feet of the wearer sore, while 
the coarser-looking army shoe proved far better fitted 
for the every-day duties of a soldier. The true test 
proved to be, not looks, but service. 

As the days passed on, on the march, the costly and 
fine-looking shoes were actually taken off and thrown 
aside on the road, while their weary wearers had to 
trudge along in their stocking feet, hoping to be able 
to get back to camp by and by, and secure some of 
the before-despised but wisely-planned army shoes. 

7 



8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

And I learned a new lesson from this, of the soldier's 
dependence on his foot-covering in the path of duty. 

Out of that lesson grew this sermon. It was 
preached in the army, and again later elsewhere. It 
was re-written and freshly arranged, with other illus- 
trations, as adapted to other communities. As based 
on the text chosen, I originally called the sermon 
" Man's Strength Proportioned to Duty." I preached 
it in various pulpits from Massachusetts to California, 
as my life was then a peripatetic one, and as the les- 
son of this sermon seemed adapted to any community. 

At one time, being invited to pass a Sunday in Salem, 
Massachusetts, I was, in advance, requested by the 
pastor to preach this sermon, of which he had heard. 
Reaching Salem on Saturday evening, I found it an- 
nounced in one of the papers that the next day 
" Chaplain Trumbull of Hartford " was to preach in 
town, and by special request he was to give his 
" famous Shoe Sermon." Then, and thus at other 
times, I learned that the sermon was known as " Chap- 
lain Trumbull's Shoe Sermon." But the subject of 
the sermon seems to me to be worth considering, by 
whatever name it is known. 



STRENGTH PROPORTIONED TO DUTY 

Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy days, 
so shall thy strength be (Deut. 33 : 25). 

Have you ever realized how much of one's com- 
fort, and one's efficiency for service, depends on one's 
shoes ? Peculiarly is it true that if a man would 
travel, or would do work in the world, he must have 
a foot-covering that is easy and durable. 

An officer of the Smithsonian Institution, after 
examining the collection of foot-gear from all parts 
of the world in the National Museum at Washington, 
said, on this subject : " It is a curious fact which seems 
to have been overlooked, that while other parts of the 
human costume have been more intimately associated 
with the enjoyment of life, and [with] decoration, than 
with mere bodily comfort, the shoe has had a more 
serious history. It is really an instrument of travel 
and transportation. All the savage and barbarous 
peoples of the earth that stay at home are barefooted ; 
and it is only when they go away from home, and 
carry burdens upon a common path, that they begin 
to look after the interest of that important organ 
called the foot." 

A Chinese wife who is not expected to leave home, 

9 



lo Shoes and Ratio7zs for a Long March 

and who need not work while there, requires no stout 
or soft shoe to take her ease in. But the sturdy 
peasant woman of Holland or Belgium, who does 
more than her share of toil and travel, must have her 
wooden sabot to enable her to keep up with or to go 
ahead of her brother or husband. The athletic young 
woman of England and America could not be at the 
front to-day, as she is, without the well-laced bicycle 
gaiters, the strong golf-boots, and the stout walking- 
shoes, such as are advertised on every side. 

It is said that he who should invent a shoe that 
would neither soon wear out nor make the foot of the 
walker sore would do more for the science of war 
than he who invented or improved the most power- 
ful enginery of destruction. And this was the 
thought of Napoleon when he said that ten thou- 
sand men moved twenty miles a day are more than 
a match for twenty thousand men moved ten miles 
a day. 

The shoes soldiers wear have as much to do with 
their efficiency as the weapons they carry, according 
to this standard of judgment. Men who made long 
and forced marches through the yielding, clinging 
clay of the roads of the South in springtime or 
autumn, during our Civil War, in the parching dust 
of the same region in mid-summer, and over rough, 
hard-frozen ground in the dead of winter, can ap- 
preciate this truth as others are not likely to. 

The promise of our text, as we are told, is part of 
"the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God 



A Shoe Sermon 1 1 



blessed the children of Israel before his death " (Deut. 
33 : i). That promise had meaning as first given to a 
people who had, for a full generation, wandered in the 
wilderness, and to whom their leader could say, at the 
close, " Thy raiment [foot-gear included] waxed not 
old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty 
years." (Deut. 8:4). 

Experiences of the past are made a basis of en- 
couragement for the future. As things have been, by 
God's blessing, so things shall be to him whom God 
leads : " Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as 
thy days, so shall thy strength be." 

It is durability, rather than softness, that is needed 
in the sandal worn by the Arab of the desert of Sinai, 
as he tracks the flint-covered chalk plains where the 
Israelites wandered in all those years. The sandal 
used there still is the toughest rawhide obtainable, 
the best material at hand, most like " iron and brass," 
to resist the cutting force of the flint knives which 
must be trodden over hour after hour of every weary 
day. In the margin of our English Bibles, it is given 
as an alternative reading of our text, " Under thy soles 
shall be iron and brass." Shoes that waxed not old 
in forty years, while the feet above them swelled not, 
were a God-given blessing that the plainest man could 
appreciate. 

And all that that promise meant to the Israelites of 
old, it means to every one of God's children to-day. 
As little Samuel's mother sang of Him in whom she 
trusted, we can sing in faith of Him who " is the same 



1 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Heb. 13 : 8). 
*' He will keep the feet of his saints [his holy ones] " 
(i Sam. 2 : 9). "For this God is our God for ever 
and ever : he will be our guide even unto death " 
(Psa. 48 : 14). 

" Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy 
days, so shall thy strength be." While God leads the 
way, we shall have shoes for every march, and strength 
for every contest to which we are summoned until the 
end of our pilgrim course. Do we really believe that ? 
Are we ready to trust God's word to us, as to our 
shoes, and as to our days ? The question is not 
whether God is willing to do as he has promised, but 
whether we are ready to rest on that promise. 

Even when men see before them the pillar of fire 
and of cloud, marking out their path of duty, and 
when they hear behind them the voice of God's Spirit, 
or God's providences, saying in unmistakable terms, 
" This is the way, walk ye in it " (Isa. 30 : 21), how 
common it is for them to fear lest their shoes or their 
strength shall fail ! 

The young man going out, in search of honest em- 
ployment, from a quiet country home into the excit- 
ing and bewildering whirl of a great city, is very apt 
to feel, as he yields to temptations from without and 
to evil promptings from within, that his moral shoes 
would have stood the wear and tear of a country 
roadside ; but that these city pavements are too hard 
treading for such tender feet as his — even with the 
strongest covering he can have for them. 



A Shoe Sermon 13 

If he goes to sea, in the line of plain duty, he is 
likely to think that, in parting with the gospel institu- 
tions of the land, he leaves hope of a practical religious 
life behind him. Finding the means of support for 
himself and for his loved ones in a factory village, 
it is possible that he will think that no other place 
was ever so full of inducements to evil, so barren of 
helps to a course of rectitude, as this. Becoming 
a student at the academy or the university of his 
own or of parents' most careful selection, he will 
perhaps believe that almost any similar institution 
of learning would have proved to him a surer school 
of virtue. 

If he is employed on a railroad, or at a hotel, or in 
a hospital, or in an apothecary's shop ; if he becomes 
a mechanic, or a fisherman, or a street laborer, or a 
policeman, — whatever he has to do, or wherever his lot 
is cast, he is prone to take the same view of the resist- 
less power of his surroundings — or of his " environ- 
ment " as men call it now-a-days. 

And this in face of the fact that city life, v/ith all 
its temptations, develops some of the highest types 
of personal piety and Christian manliness ; that in 
forecastle, steerage, and cabin, men who follow the 
sea are found faithfully following Christ; that each 
factory village and mining district shows noble speci- 
mens of godly manufacturers and operatives ; that in 
the very academy or university where he is now study- 
ing, are those, no better circumstanced than himself, 
who honor their Christian profession ; and that God 



14 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

has his faithful witnesses at hotels, in hospitals, and on 
railroads, in camp and on the march, in stores and 
workshops, and in professions and in business life, 
and among the busy toilers and burden-bearers of 
every proper pursuit of mankind. 

Nor is it the young alone who question the fitness 
of their moral shoes, and the fulness of their moral 
strength in God's service. Men and women of maturer 
years also hesitate to cast themselves confidently on 
the promise that is distinct and unequivocal to every 
soul ready to stand or to march as God directs, 
" Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy days, 
so shall thy strength be." 

Yet the promise of this text rests not alone on its 
primal declaration. Its truth is continually reaffirmed 
to every observing, reflecting, believing mind, in the 
lessons of sight, of experience, and of faith. 

I. All the teachings of nature enforce this text. 

Nature, we say, adapts its gifts to the need of its 
creatures. That is, God gives a supply corresponding 
with the demand, in all his works of creation. 

Wings are for the air, fins are for the sea, feet are 
for the ground, webbed feet are for the swimming 
bird. The beaver knows for what its broad, stout tail 
is designed. The ant-eater understands the purpose 
of its prolonged snout, as the eagle does of its talons 
and beak, the porcupine of its quills, and the cuttle- 
fish of its inky store. The camel's water-tank hump 
meets the want of the droughty desert, as its spreading 



A Shoe Sermon 15 

foot does the yielding sand. The elephant's proboscis, 
the flukes of the whale, the shell of the turtle, the 
wing- hooks of the little bat, and the spider's web- 
loom, meet each a peculiar want of the specific owner. 
And God's wisely bestowed gifts to his dumb crea- 
tures a;re often clianged with changing circumstances 
or locations. The varying seasons or temperature 
bring to many an animal a change of coats. The 
horse and the dog have different coverings from nature 
in January and in July ; and the farther north we go 
the thicker and warmer we find the fur of the otter or 
sable, and the hair of the fox or bear. 

As with animate creations, so with inanimate. No 
stalk is so frail and fragile as the rank sprout spring- 
ing up in the close, dark cellar, where there is least 
call to meet exposure ; w^hile the tree that stands all 
exposed on the open plain to the storms of heaven 
has strength from heaven, above its species in the pro- 
tecting forest ; and that tree is ever stoutest which has 
been most tried. 

When the branches are so shaken by the wind that 
the whole tree sways to and fro as though tottering 
for a fall, — then, in the hour of danger, nature gives 
new and needed strength, by sending down the roots 
deeper into the upholding soil, and by packing the 
earth closer about roots and trunk, so that after the 
storm has passed away, the tree when again at rest 
is only firmer than before in the place where God has 
bidden it to stand fast, having had reaffirmed to it the 
declaration which nature makes unvaryingly to all its 



1 6 S/iocs and Rations for a Long ATarch 

minor creations : " Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; 
and as thy days, so shall thy strength be." 

And to man nature says the same, concerning his 
bodily and mental organization and development, as 
to the lower orders of creation. He whose work calls 
for most strength, has most. He whose new circum- 
stances necessitate greater powers of endurance, finds 
those powers enlarging. The blacksmith's arm or the 
arm of the college oarsman grows strong, not weak, 
by use. The railway or hotel porter keeps pace, in 
his lifting power, with the expanding size of a lady's 
traveling trunk, as he continues year after year at his 
toil. The child of poverty who has no protecting 
shoes finds his bare feet becoming almost as iron and 
brass, on the flinty road and among the briers of the 
field. The student, in heavily taxing his memory, 
finds his memory more tenacious. 

Other things being equal, he who studies most, 
or who teaches most, has not only the best stored 
mind, but the most active brain, and the freest mental 
faculties. Use summons strength. Supply follows 
demand. Give your son a few months with an ex- 
ploring party on the frontier, or let him have a season 
of camping-out in the woods, or a real fishing cruise 
along our northeastern coast, — with the exposures and 
privations of such a life, — and see if the change in 
him, in consequence, is not one of increased muscular 
compactness, and of added vitality and energy, as well 
as of improved appetite and browned complexion. 
As he needs more strength he is likely to have more. 



A Shoe Sermon 17 

Recall the numberless verifications of this truth in 
the experiences of our Civil War. Many a delicate 
youth, or enfeebled man, who then grew stronger and 
gained health amid the endurances of camp and cam- 
paigning, — under exposures and privations which 
would have killed him at his home, where such 
exposures and privations were unnecessary, — could 
answer the inquiry how it was possible for him to live 
through and actually to thrive by such endurances, 
only by affirming that nature had, in his case, again 
made good the assurance it proffers to every man in 
the path of duty anywhere : " Thy shoes shall be iron 
and brass ; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be." 

2. Moreover, the experiences of mankind bear con- 
stant witness to the truth of our text. 

In practical life we find that that man is not holiest 
who is remotest from surroundings of evil. " The 
nearer the church, the farther from God," has passed 
into an adage, because of human liability to go astray 
in even the most religious neighborhood. Peculiar 
privileges bring peculiar temptations. Says an old 
commentator, '* The Lord never revives his work but 
the devil revives his; and he has a spire of sin for 
every spire of grace." 

" Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The devil always builds a chapel there." 

It was while God was still manifesting his awful 
presence at Sinai, that Israel made the golden calf to 
worship. And it was "after the sop " of affection and 



1 8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

confidence at the Last Supper, that Satan entered into 
Judas (John 13 : 24-27). '* It is the man bringing his 
dividend from the bank door," says quaint John New- 
ton, " who has most cause to dread the pilferer's hand." 

No rehgious atmosphere excludes temptation ; no 
religious occupation destroys its power. Sinful 
promptings and impellings have to be met and battled 
in the closet and in the prayer-meeting, in the pulpit 
and in the pew, in visits of Christian charity, and even 
at the table of our Lord. On the other hand, no 
presence of evil necessitates indulgence in sin. Some 
of the godliest men and women in the world are those 
whose purity and uprightness stand out the more 
because of their surroundings of vice and wickedness. 

The Christian missionary in a heathen land, or in 
our city slums, is not expected to lower his moral 
standard on account of the vile practices of the peo- 
ple about him. Who would fear that a mission-school 
teacher would be more liable to swerve from a course 
of rectitude through the nearness of dens of iniquity 
to the room in which he pursues his love-inspired 
work ? As a rule, the opposer of evil is found firmer 
in his purpose of good, and stronger for its prosecu- 
tion, when brought of God face to face with the enemy 
he has volunteered to battle. 

It is the same with strength against trial as with 
strength against evil. In quiet home life, many a frail 
and delicate young mother shows a strength of body 
in her prolonged and unintermitted watching over, 
or tending, an invalid child, — or a strength of mind 



A Shoe Sermon 19 

and soul in rising up under the burden of sudden and 
terrible bereavement, to care for herself and her chil- 
dren, instead of resting with them as hitherto on 
another's care, — such powers of endurance and suffer- 
ing and performance as none who knew her had sup- 
posed were hers ; such indeed as she did not possess 
until her new demands summoned the new supply, 
which is ever ready for those who need and trust. 

Did you never see a lad, suddenly bereft of his 
father, so transformed by his consciousness of new 
responsibility for the remaining household — so lifted, 
as it were, to a higher sphere of thought and charac- 
ter by the " evolution of catastrophism " — as to change 
his whole outward appearance in a few brief days ; 
the expression of his face so maturing, and his manly 
young form so uplifting and expanding, as to make 
him hardly recognizable by those who knew him in 
his days of reliance on the one whose place he is now 
summoned to fill ? As you looked at such a youth, 
you might have realized anew the truth of our text, 
and believed that he too had been supplied with new 
shoes for his new journey, and given strength he had 
no need of prior to his days of bereavement. 

God be praised that such shoes, and such strength, 
shall never be lacking to any dutiful and trustful dis- 
ciple of Jesus ! For, mark you : 

J. The word of God is pledged in confirmation of the 
promise of otir text. 

" The grass withereth, the flower fadeth : but the 



20 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

word of our God shall stand for ever" (Isa. 40 : 8 ; 
I Peter i : 24, 25). What has been divinely spoken 
will be divinely fulfilled. Even if the teachings of 
nature gave no encouragement to a belief in this text, 
and the experiences of mankind up to this time failed 
to bear witness to its truth, the child of God would 
still have the word of God as explicit, and as not to be 
doubted, that his shoes shall be iron and brass ; and 
that as his days, so shall his strength be. 

If it be necessary, God can work a miracle — doing 
that which is far above the ordinary course of nature, 
and contrary to the lessons of experience. God will 
work ten thousand miracles before his word shall fail, 
or one jot or tittle of it pass away unfulfilled. 

Hath not God said to each and to all of his trust- 
ful children : " Fear thou not ; for I am with thee : be 
not dismayed ; for I am thy God : I will strengthen 
thee ; yea, I will help thee ; yea, I will uphold thee 
with the right hand of my righteousness " (Isa. 41 : 10) ; 
** When thou passest through the waters, I will be 
with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not 
overflow thee : when thou walkest through the fire, 
thou shalt not be burned ; neither shall the flame 
kindle upon thee " (Isa. 43 : 2) ; " My grace is sufficient 
for thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness " 
(2 Cor. 12 : 9), — my power is completest when your 
need is greatest ? And shall not God perform to the 
uttermost his explicit and oft-repeated promises to the 
children of his love ? 

Child of God ! take heart then : for nature, experi- 



A Shoe Sermon 21 

ence and revelation unite to give you cheer. " Be 
strong and of a good courage ; be not afraid, 
neither be thou dismayed : for the Lord thy God is 
with thee whithersoever thou goest " (Josh, i : 9). 
Never fear the length of the path of duty, nor the 
flints and thorns which beset its track : ** Thy shoes 
shall be iron and brass." Never shrink from the 
wearisomeness of the way where God leads, nor from 
the sun and the storms of its dragging hours: "As 
thy days, so shall thy strength be." 

In your home as now constituted (or in any new 
home to which you may be called) ; in the profession 
or occupation you are now pursuing ; in the school, 
or store, or office, or mill, or hotel, or hospital, where 
you are engaged; with your existing surroundings; 
with your past record of sins, and follies, and wretched 
mistakes ; with your habits and appetites and passions 
just as they are, — stand firm, and be strong; yield 
not to evil, falter not in trust. " God is faithful, who 
will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are 
able ; but will with the temptation also make a way 
to escape, that ye maybe able to bear it " (i Cor. 
10 : 13). You "can do all things through Christ 
which strengtheneth " you (Phil. 4 : 13). Holding the 
hand of Jesus, you shall not fall nor fail. Your shoes 
and your strength shall endure unto the end. 

" Weary and thirsty — no water-brook near thee, 
Press on ; nor faint at the length of the way. 
The God of thy Hfe will assuredly hear thee : 
He will provide thee strength for the day. 



2 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" Be trustful, be steadfast, whatever betide thee ; 
Only one thing do thou ask of the Lord : 
Grace to go forward, wherever he guides thee, 
Simply believing the truth of his word." 

" Thy shoes shall be iron and brass ; and as thy 
days, so shall thy strength be." " JVij' shoes ! " " T/ij 
days ! " Do you note that ? Not the shoes, nor the 
days, of another; but t/iinc oivn. 

Be sure then that you stand in your own shoes, 
that you seek to occupy only your own days. Absa- 
lom craved the shoes of his kingly father; he slipped 
in his effort to walk in them. Jonah would have had 
strength for a journey to Nineveh ; but he lacked it 
to make the voyage from Joppa to Tarshish. 

He who walks in any path but that of duty walks 
in other shoes than his own ; the days he passes there 
are not his days : he has no strength for their trials 
or needs. No promise of shoes or strength is to him 
who walketh in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand- 
eth in the way of sinners, or sitteth in the seat of the 
scornful ; who enters into the path of the wicked, and 
goeth in the way of evil men. 

While a man's duty is at sea, his shoes are not 
suited to land travel ; while his duty is in the city, he 
has not strength for a day in the country, or by the 
seaside, winter or summer. A mother's place may 
be, on the Lord's day, in the nursery, while her " soul 
longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the 
Lord " (Psa. 84 : 2). If this be so, — if her place is 
there, — then in that family room, with her children 



A Shoe Sermon 23 

about her, she can look for such grace, — such dehght- 
ful, satisfying evidence of God's sacred presence in 
her heart, — as she could not find in the grandest tem- 
ple of earth, with the most devoted band of worshipers, 
sitting under the teachings of the most eloquent and 
earnest minister of Christ who ever expounded the 
word of God to a waiting people. 

Thus also with the physician, or the nurse, whose 
station is by the bedside of a suffering patient ; thus 
with the sailor on the vessel's deck, far beyond the 
sound of the Sabbath bell ; with the druggist's clerk, 
the housemaid, the policeman, or the soldier; thus 
with him who must teach when he would fain listen ; 
thus with every person who must forgo ordinary 
means of grace, or meet extraordinary temptations at 
the post of duty anywhere. 

Men of capital, men of labor, professional men, 
travelers and students, women and children and 
youth, are to be anxious only as to whether they are 
in just the place, and at just the occupation to which 
they have been summoned by the providences of 
God. 

That point settled aright, — as it can be, — and they 
need have no concern for their surroundings ; no fear 
that they shall there be unable to serve God wholly 
and heartily and acceptably ; for they are more likely 
to lead a holy life in that place than anywhere else on 
the face of the whole wide earth, because God can, 
and does, make city and country and village and 
ocean, field and workshop and home and school, 



24 Shoes and Raticms for a Long March 



spheres of grace to such of his children as belong 
there. To all such his heavenly promise rings out 
clearly and continually above, and yet in truest har- 
mony with, the teachings of successive ages, and in 
chord with nature's grandest melodies, "Thy shoes 
shall be iron and brass ; and as thy days, so shall thy 



strength be." 



A SERMON ON THIRST 



II 

A SERMON ON THIRST 

The first sermon I preached as a chaplain was writ- 
ten before I was a chaplain, and was planned long 
before I had any thought of ever being in the Chris- 
tian ministry ; but it was none the less closely con- 
nected in its subject and substance with my army 
chaplaincy. Its truth has grown upon me in its im- 
portance in the passing of more than twoscore years. 

In 1859 I was in Philadelphia to attend a national 
Sunday-school convention in Jayne's Hall, on lower 
Chestnut Street. My host was the venerable Am- 
brose White, at his home in Arch Street. Going 
from his residence to the convention, I passed 
Massey's great brewery, then on Tenth Street, above 
Market, and its open doors and large vats attracted 
my attention, and started me on a train of thought. 
The busy workmen, the rumbling teams, the hundreds 
of casks, the filled troughs and gutters, which I saw, 
were an illustration of the constant and costly efforts 
to satisfy or to minister to men's ceaseless cravings 
for drink. What want in the world equals thirst, and 
how vain and mocking are man's endeavors to supply 
what in this realm is longed for ! 

27 



28 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

As I walked on to the hall, the greatness of that 
thought grew on me. The words of Jesus at Jacob's 
Well to the woman of Samaria who asked him for a 
drink, came to my mind. I thought that day that if 
I were a clergyman I should want to preach from that 
text to a thirsty world. As days and years went by, 
I still had that thought in mind — or that thought had 
me. When, unexpectedly, I was called to be a regi- 
mental chaplain, I thought yet more deeply of that 
proposed sermon. Having decided to accept the call, 
I began my first sermon before I was examined for 
ordination. I first preached the sermon in Williams- 
burg, Long Island, on my way to my regiment in 
North Carolina. 

Of course, I had occasion to change the form and 
illustrations of the sermon so as to adapt it more fit- 
tingly to a soldier audience as I came to understand 
soldiers. Yet its truth grew on me steadily. It be- 
came a prominent phase of my gospel preaching to 
soldiers or to civilians. Later I sought to make more 
vivid and graphic the scene at the well of Jacob. In 
my library, after the war, I studied the region by the 
aid of maps and books of travel. I sought to know 
precisely what could be seen in all directions by a 
traveler seated by that well. It became one of the 
points of greatest interest to me in the Holy Land. 

Years afterward, when for the first time I was 
traveling in that region, I had a special desire to be 
at that very spot. I turned aside from the road be- 
tween Jerusalem and Nabloos to find a seat there. 



A Sermofi on Thirst 29 

The country and views about me, north, east, south, 
west, to the far horizon, seemed sacredly familiar. 
And in that new atmosphere the central truth of that 
scene seemed yet more precious than ever. I wish 
that this sermon could be of as much good to some 
one who reads it as it has been to me in its writing 
and in its contemplation. 



SOUL-THIRST, AND ITS QUENCHING 

Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again : 
but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give 
him shall be in him, a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life (John 4 : 13, 14). 

One of the most beautiful spots in all Palestine is 
that of which the ancient well of Jacob is the center, 
about half-way between Jerusalem and Jezreel. It is 
just to the east of the principal traveled road through 
ancient Canaan, the great caravan route from time 
immemorial between the Nile and the Euphrates, the 
highway of the nations from the far East to the ever 
extending West. 

Beyond this highway, westward, there sweeps the 
valley of Shechem, between the mountains : Ebal on 
the north, and Gerizim on the south ; " a valley green 
with grass, gray with olives, gardens sloping down on 
every side, fresh springs rushing down in all directions." 

Northward the snowy summit of Hermon is seen 
in the far distance — above the hills of Ephraim. 
Eastward are the hills which skirt the valley of the 
Jordan. Southward loom up the hills which stand 
round about Jerusalem. 
30 



A Sermon on Thirst 31 

Seventeen centuries before, the patriarch Jacob, 
while a sojourner in that land, had cut down a hun- 
dred feet and more through the limestone rock to the 
living springs below at that place, in order to secure 
water for his thirsting people and flocks. Other wells 
and streams were near, but every Oriental land-owner 
must have water on his own domain, in order to be 
secure against enemies shutting him in, or cutting off 
his water supply from without. And Jacob's Well 
has there stood ever since, with its associations so 
many and rich. 

The well is on the northern and western edge of the 
extensive and fertile Plain of Mukhna, or " Plain of 
the Cornfields." That well-side is the one spot on 
earth where we may be sure that Jesus stood and sat 
and taught while he was here among men; and even 
then that spot was rich beyond all others with mem- 
ories of the ancient days of God's peculiar people, 
and with associations of the world's great conquerors. 

Jesus, with his disciples, was returning from Judea 
to his home in Galilee. Going by the direct route, 
instead of by the roundabout way east of the Jordan, 
" he must needs go through Samaria " and come 
near this well. 

The feeling was very bitter between Jews and 
Samaritans. Strict Jews counted it a defilement to 
partake of food which a Samaritan had prepared. But 
Jesus was above all such prejudices of race, and when 
he reached this spot he sent his disciples into the 
Samaritan village of Sychar, a little way up the valley 



3 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of Shechem ; while he, ** being wearied with his jour- 
ney, " sat down by the well to rest. 

Many a mighty one of old, who claimed or who 
sought to be the ruler of the world, had halted by 
that well, or had passed and repassed along the high- 
way which it was near. 

Kedor-la'omer, the Elamite king from east of Baby- 
lon, made his great campaign westward for the pur- 
pose of controlling this road, and passed over it with 
Lot as a prisoner, when Abraham was in pursuit of 
him, as told in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. 

The principal kings of Egypt went this way and 
came again, on their marches of invasion and conquest ; 
from the days of Thotmes and Sety and Rameses, 
down to Shishak and Necho and the Ptolemies. Along 
it also had passed the kings of Assyria and Babylon : 
Tiglath-pileser, and Sennacherib, and Shalmanezer, 
and Nebuchadnezzar, and others. 

And so, also, there had come and gone Benhadad 
and Hazael and Rezin of Syria, and Alexander the 
Great of Macedon. 

Yet never had that highway of the conquerors felt 
the tread of so mighty a ruler, whose sway should 
extend so widely and continue so long, as the way- 
worn traveler whose tired feet rested by that well at 
that noon-tide hour, while his few humble followers 
were gone to the neighboring village to purchase 
bread. 

While Jesus waited alone by the well, there came 
thither a Samaritan woman to draw water, probably 



A Sermon on Thirst 'TyT^ 

for the laborers who were at work in the great corn- 
fields which this well supplied. Jesus said to the 
woman, " Give me to drink." That was a stranger 
question, just then and there, than we might be in- 
clined to suppose. 

An Oriental would not, as a rule, speak to a woman 
in the open air ; far less would he seek, through shar- 
ing a drink with a recognized alien, to make a friendly 
compact with her. In the East the giving and receiv- 
ing a cup of cold water only is a covenant, or truce, 
for the time being, between even deadly enemies. 

When Hormozan, a Persian ruler, surrendered to 
the Khaleef Omar, and was brought into the presence 
of his captor, he asked at once for a drink. Omar 
asked him if he were thirsty. *' No," he said, " I only 
wish to drink in your presence, so that I may be sure 
of my life." On this, his life was assured him. 

When Saladeen had defeated the Christians in 
Palestine, he received their two chief leaders in his 
tent as prisoners. The king of the Franks he seated 
by his side, and gave him drink cooled with snow 
from the Lebanon. When this king, having tasted it, 
offered it also to Prince Arnald, Saladeen protested, 
saying: "This wretch shall not drink of the water 
with my permission ; for then there would be safety 
to him." Thereupon he struck off Prince Arnald's 
head. 

No wonder, therefore, in view of this state of things, 
that the woman at Jacob's Well was surprised when a 
man of the proud Jewish nation actually condescended 



34 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

to ask a drink of water from a woman of the despised 
Samaritan stock ; and that she responded with the 
question : 

" How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of 
me, which am a woman of Samaria ? " 

The rejoinder of the stranger Jew only puzzled her 
the more. " Jesus answered and said unto her, If 
thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that 
saith to thee, Give me to drink ; thou wouldest have 
asked of him, and he would have given thee living 
water." 

•* Living water " is water from a perennial spring, 
as distinct from ordinary well water, or cistern water. 
And " living water " is to this day, in the East, cried 
by the water-carrier in the crowded city streets as 
" The gift of God ! The gift of God ! " 

What could this stranger traveler, without pitcher 
or cord, mean by the suggestion that he could better 
meet her thirst than she his ? Wonderingly, therefore, 
she asked of him : 

" Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well 
is deep : from whence then hast thou that living water ? 
Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us 
the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, 
and his cattle ? " 

Then it was that Jesus uttered the words of our 
text, and by them caused the Samaritan woman to 
wonder more than before. 

** Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
again : but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 



A Sermon on Thirst 35 

shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I 
shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring- 
ing up into everlasting hfe." 

" Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
him shall never thirst ! " What a promise ! What a 
thought ! Never to thirst ! Never to thirst ! 

No appetite or passion, no craving or desire, is so 
universal, so constant, so fierce, and so resistless, as 
thirst. Thirst was the first want of the first-born 
babe. Amid the awful terrors of Calvary, thirst forced 
an agonized cry from the lips of the dying Redeemer. 
The one cry that has come back to us from a spirit in 
torment was for a drop of water to cool a tongue 
parching with thirst. And one of the promises pre- 
cious to the children of God is, that in heaven they 
shall not thirst any more. 

To slake another's thirst but for a moment, is a 
bounty acknowledged gratefully by man, and not un- 
noticed by God. It was the yielding and bestowing 
of a cup of drink on the field of Zutphen that stands 
out in history as the crowning glory of Sir Philip 
Sidney, the peerless flower of chivalry. Says our 
Lord, concerning human ministries to his disciples : 
" Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these 
little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a 
disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose 
his reward" (Matt. 10 : 42). 

" A cup of cold water only ! " One whose lips 
have parched with thirst in an army-prison, or on a 
sandy march, or while lying wounded on a field of 



2,6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

battle, can realize the preciousness of *' a cup of cold 
water only " as others cannot. 

After one of the battles of our Civil War, a mem- 
ber of the government ambulance corps was moving 
among the wounded on the field, assisting in their 
removal. He came to a dying Southern soldier, too 
far gone for hope through removal. As he stooped 
over the dying man with a kindly word, the parching 
lips asked for water. The lips were tenderly moistened. 

" Thank you ! Now please lay my cap over my 
face, and let me die." 

As this service was rendered lovingly, there came 
another call from the dying man : 

** Will you please tell me your name, my friend ? " 

" Why, of course I will ; but why do you ask it ? " 

" Oh, so I can pray God through all eternity to 
bless you for giving me that water ! " 

To bring water for his thirst, man has poured out 
millions upon millions for costly aqueducts, the very 
ruins of which are among the world's wonders. He 
has bored the artesian well into depths which could 
never be reached by cutting. He has tunneled under 
the lake's bottom, miles beyond the shore, for a purer 
supply. He has linked the desert with the river by 
chains of canals. 

Yet at the best, pure water has not always satisfied 
man's thirst ; so he has searched the world over for 
tempting beverages, and has taxed the ingenuity of 
his fellows for new and refreshing drinks. 

To meet their ceaseless craving for drink, men have 



A Sermon on TJiirst 2>7 

yielded all hope of gain and honor and health ; have 
squandered property, made home desolate, dear ones 
wretched, and themselves drunkards, — miserable here, 
and without hope for hereafter. 

Desire for drink has crowded our almshouses, and 
packed our jails. It has lighted the incendiary's torch, 
and sharpened the assassin's knife. Long, fearfully, 
hopelessly has the power of its curse swept the wide 
world. To stay its ravages, the arm of the civil law 
and the open hand of philanthrophy have been ex- 
tended to comparatively little purpose. 

The longing for drink has been neither satisfied 
nor removed. Men still drink and thirst, and thirst 
and drink again. Only one person in all the world, 
and he that travel-worn pilgrim by the well of Jacob, 
has ever dared confidently to say, " Whosoever drink- 
eth of the water that I shall give him shall never 
thirst." 

Is it, then, strange that that woman of Samaria, as 
she looked into those clear eyes of truth, and heard 
those convincing tones of sincerity, should start at the 
thought of the breadth and fulness of that unique 
declaration ; and, remembering all her weary journeys 
to and from that well, should cry out in earnestness : 
"Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither 
come hither to draw " ? 

But it was the thirst of the soul, and not merely 
bodily thirst, that Jesus claimed power to quench ; 
although the greater power included the lesser, and 
he was competent to both. This he proceeded to 



38 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

show to the now deeply interested woman, in their 
further conversation. 

All the greater and more precious was the wonder- 
ful promise of Jesus, as thus interpreted ; for universal, 
persistent, fierce, and resistless as is man's bodily crav- 
ing for drink, it exceeds in no degree his longing for 
that which shall refresh and satisfy his inner and 
spiritual nature. 

So soon as a human soul comes to consciousness, 
it comes to soul-thirst. So long as the human soul 
exists, it must have soul-drink or be in torment. 
Religion is the drink of the soul. The soul craves 
religion as the lungs crave air. The soul is formed 
and fitted for the reception of religion, as the eyes are 
formed and fitted for the reception of light. 

To satisfy their soul-thirst, men give and struggle 
and suffer and die. Idolaters " lavish gold out of the 
bag, and weigh silver in the balance, and hire a gold- 
smith " (Isa. 46 : 6), to secure to themselves a drink- 
ing-cup for the soul. Sages of old joined with sove- 
reigns and with soldiers, in rearing mighty structures 
as drinking-places for souls that were athirst. The 
costliest buildings of earth have ever been those 
which marked the spot where thirsting souls might 
find refreshing. 

From a love of the drink of the soul men have 
given up property, and honors, and home, and friends, 
and have gone cheerfully into prison houses or into 
the flames with the longing cry : '* As the hart panteth 
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 



A Sermon on Thirst 39 

O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living 
God " (Psa. 42 : I, 2). " My soul thirsteth for thee, 
my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, 
where no water is " (Psa. 63 : i). 

And in all the centuries since the first cry for drink 
went up from a thirsty soul, only one person, and he 
that travel-worn pilgrim by the well of Jacob, has 
ever dared confidently to say, concerning the soul's 
thirst for God : " Whosoever drinketh of the water 
that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water 
that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life." Is not such a 
word as that worth heeding ? Is not such a promise 
worth testing ? 

But is this word to be trusted ? Is this promise 
sure ? Many a word of hope has proved false ; many 
a glad promise has failed in its testing. Is there 
firmer ground of confidence in this case ? 

Even as those who sought the quenching of their 
bodily thirst have found that ** wine is a mocker " 
(Prov. 20 : i), that "wine and new wine take away the 
heart'' (Hos. 4 : 11), but not the thirst; even as pil- 
grims on the desert have perished by the brink of 
empty wells, where their thirst had been mocked as 
they came for its slaking ; even as fainting travelers 
have been deluded by the mirage of the desert into 
one more vain effort to reach the water which they 
longed for,— even so, also, thirsting souls have been 
mocked with the wine of superstition, have famished 
at the exhausted cistern of a false religion, or have 



40 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

wasted their latest strength in pursuing the mirage of 
some delusive philosophy of first causes and ultimate 
destiny. 

When Philip V, of Spain, first saw in full play the 
macrnificent new fountains he had erected at La 
Granja, it is said that an expression of pleasure passed 
over his sad face ; then his melancholy look returned, 
and he said, bitterly : " Thou hast given me three min- 
utes* distraction from my cares ; and thou hast cost 
me three millions." Might not his words be spoken 
of many a costly fountain erected to gratify man's 
spiritual longings ? 

The ruins of such fountains dot the world over. 
What else are the crumbling, but still magnificent, 
temples at Nineveh and Nuffar, at Memphis and 
Thebes, at Susa and Persepolis, at Athens and Rome, 
at Mexico and Cuzco ! Their cost was millions. Their 
relief to soul-thirst was momentary. " Broken cis- 
terns " are they all, " that can hold no water " 
(Jer. 2:13). 

Every deserted altar to an unknown god to-day is 
a shattered drinking-cup, which some famishing soul 
has dashed aside because of its bitter mockery of the 
thirst which it could not quench. 

The saddest hearts in all the world to-day are those 
which have been disappointed in their search for that 
which would satisfy their spiritual longings, whose 
best religious experiences have been "as when a 
thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh ; but 
he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath 



A Sermon on Thirst 41 

appetite " (Isa. 29 : 8). Is there surer help in the 
promise of Jesus by the well of Jacob ? Will his 
word of hope never mock or delude or fail a thirsty 
soul ? 

My friends, this is a question of fact rather than of 
opinion. It is to be settled by testimony, not by 
argument. There stands the declaration of Jesus : 
" Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give 
him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give 
him shall be in him a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life." 

More than sixty generations of believers in Jesus 
have tested this promise, and are witnesses of its truth. 
Myriads have turned, with thirsty souls, to Jesus; 
never one, never one, never one has been refused or 
disappointed. Men and women and children who 
rested on this promise have gone calmly into the fires 
of martyrdom, and with moistened lips have sung the 
praises of Jesus while the flames were purifying their 
bodies. 

Others have sorrowed on alone in life, but not as 
those who had no hope (i Thess. 4 : 13). They have 
been " troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; 
. . . perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not 
forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed " (2 Cor. 4 : 
8, 9). They have been "as chastened, and not killed ; 
as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing ; as poor, yet making 
many rich ; as having nothing, and yet possessing all 
things " (2 Cor. 6 : 9, 10). 



42 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Many of you here before me are also witnesses of 
these things. You could rise up, one by one, and say 
in grateful confidence : 

" I heard the voice of Jesus say, 

' Behold, I freely give 
The living water ; thirsty one, 

Stoop down, and drink, and live ! * 
I came to Jesus, and I drank 

Of that life-giving stream ; 
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, 

And now I live in him." ^ 

Every one of you here is thus satisfied in Christ; 
or you are athirst in your soul, and you will be until 
you test this promise of Jesus. 

My friends, I have been over many a battle-field of 
life, and I have seen Christian soldiers in many a hard 
fight. I have seen many wounded ones among them, 
and many dying ones ; but I never saw one such dis- 
ciple thirsting hopelessly. 

I have seen strange sights, and heard strange words, 
in the world. I have seen brother arrayed against 
brother, husband against wife, parent against child. 
I have heard fathers curse the sons who had dis- 
honored their names, and sons and daughters speak 
bitter words against the mothers who bore them. 
But I never yet saw a disciple of Jesus whom the 
word of Jesus had failed. I never yet heard one say 
that he had drunk of the water which Jesus proffers 
and not had his soul-thirst quenched. 

1 Horatius Bonar. 



A Sermon on Thirst 43 

Let me tell you a single incident out of my army 
experience, as illustrative of the truth I am emphasiz- 
ing. It was in July, 1863. While a prisoner in the 
city of Charleston, I was paroled for a time from the 
common jail, that I might minister to our wounded 
soldiers, brought up from before Fort Wagner, on 
Morris Island, to the Yankee Hospital, which was the 
old slave-pen on Queen Street. 

The surgeons' tables in that hospital were in the 
court, in the rear of a high brick building, where the 
wounded men were lying before and after their opera- 
tions. When brought in, the men were laid on loose 
straw on the lower floors. After treatment they were 
laid on rude cots on the floors above. 

They could not all be attended to promptly ; and 
on Tuesday morning some of them were still lying 
with the blood unwashed from their wounds of Satur- 
day night. It was the middle of July. The heat of 
the weather was added to the loss of blood in intensi- 
fying the thirst of the poor sufferers. 

My mission was to carry water, in canteens, from 
the hydrant in the courtyard to the different floors of 
the building, to pour it upon those who were thirsting. 
I was sure of a welcome in this mission ; for with the 
water I could bring unlooked-for sympathy from a 
Union chaplain to those dear, brave, uncomplaining, 
suffering soldiers. 

As I was passing along on the upper floor of that 
slave-pen hospital, a Confederate surgeon, pointing to 
a cot, said : 



44 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" Chaplain, there's a little fellow who is sinking 
rapidly. He'll not live many hours. I think you'd 
better talk with him." 

On that prompting, I turned to the " little fellow " 
on the cot. He was a fair-faced, bright-eyed New 
England lad, barely eighteen years old. He had lost 
a leg, and was sinking from the shock. When I told 
him who I was, he greeted me cheerily. 

" You are very badly wounded," I said. 

" Oh, not so very badly," he responded. " I've only 
lost one leg ; and a good many men have lost both, 
and got well." 

" I wish you were to get well," I said, shaking my 
head sadly. 

" Why, Chaplain," he said, evidently startled by my 
look and tone, " you don't mean that I'm going to 
die, do you ? " 

** Yes, my dear boy, I mean just that." 

" Oh, but. Chaplain, I can't die. I'm only a boy yet, 
and I can't die." 

" My dear boy, I wish I could give you life ; but the 
doctor says you must die." 

" But, Chaplain, I'm not ready to die." 

" Jesus Christ can make you ready — to live or to 
die, if you'll just put yourself in his hands." 

" Oh, but. Chaplain, I've been a very wicked boy. I 
was a bad boy at home ; although I had a real good 
home. I've got a real good father and mother up in New 
Hampshire ; but I ran away from them and enlisted ; 
and in the army I've been just as bad as I could be." 



A Sermon on Thirst 45 

"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, 
and he loves to have those who have been bad come 
to him to be saved. You can come to him now as a 
sinner, and ask him to forgive you and save you ; and 
he will do it gladly." 

" Well, will you pray for me, Chaplain ? " 

"Of course I will," I said; and I kneeled by his 
bedside, and prayed with and for him in loving earn- 
estness. Then, after a few words more with him, I 
turned to other sufferers, promising to come and see 
him again. 

After a little I came back to his bedside. 

"I've been looking back, Chaplain," he said, "and 
its all black, all black." 

" Then don't look back;' I said ; " but look up. It's 
all bright there." 

" But you don't know, Chaplain, how great a sinner 
I've been." 

" I don't care to know. Jesus knows. And you 
can't have been so great a sinner as he is great a Sav- 
iour. He is ready to save to the uttermost them who 
come unto God by him." 

" Do you mean, Chaplain, that right now Jesus will 
forgive all my sins if I ask him to ? " 

" I mean just that." 

" Well, Chaplain, won't you pray for me again ? " 

"Yes, my boy, I'll pray for you; but I want you to 
pray for yourself Jesus loves to have those who 
need forgiveness come and ask for it themselves." 

Once more I kneeled and prayed. As I finished 



46 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

my prayer, I laid my hand tenderly on him, and said, 
" Now you pray." 

The little fellow folded his hands across his chest, 
and prayed, — prayed in such childlike simplicity and 
trust, told so frankly to Jesus the story of his sins, 
and asked in such loving confidence for forgiveness, 
that I was sure his prayer was answered while it was 
offering, and that another thirsty soul was being re- 
freshed with the water that Jesus gives. 

As I arose from my knees, I saw that we were not 
alone. That childlike prayer, in that childlike voice, 
had drawn the attention of surgeons, nurses, and 
visitors, in the prison- hospital, and they stood about 
us, listening in tearful sympathy. 

A third time, after a brief absence, I was by that 
soldier lad. His eyes were closed. His face was very 
pale. At first I thought he had already passed away, 
and I stooped over him to find if he were still breath- 
ing. Seeming to feel my presence, he opened his 
eyes, and for a moment looked up vacantly. Then, 
as full consciousness returned, he recognized me with 
an '* Oh, it's you. Chaplain ! " and throwing up both his 
arms he clasped them about my neck, and drew my 
face down to his to give me a dying kiss. 

" You are the best friend I've got in the world," he 
said. " You've saved my soul." 

" No, no, my dear boy," I said tenderly. " Jesus 
saves your soul." 

" Yes, yes ; but you've told me about Jesus; and he's 
saved my soul. He has. Chaplain; I don't have any 



A Sermon on Thirst 47 

doubt about it. He has forgiven all my sins. And 
now I'm going- to be with him. Oh, how happy my 
father and mother will be. I want you to write and 
tell them all about it." 

And it was while I stood listening to the joyous 
words of that forgiven sinner that I was tapped on 
the shoulder, and summoned away under arrest as a 
spy, to be shut in solitary prison confinement, never 
to see that dear boy again until he and I stand together 
in our Saviour's presence. 

As I recall that hospital incident out of the dark 
memories of my army-prison life, it seems to me that 
when I went to that wounded soldier's cot, carrying 
water for the moistening of his fevered lips. He who 
sat by the well of Jacob said of that which I had to 
proffer to the suffering boy : 

" Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst 
again : but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I 
shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring- 
ing up into everlasting life." 

And that word of promise was then and there made 
good, as it always will be to one who tests its truth. 

'' Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters" (Isa. 55 : i). "And the Spirit and the bride 
say. Come. . . . And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
freely" (Rev. 22 : 17). 



GAIN OF GODLINESS 



Ill 

GAIN OF GODLINESS 

Even in my army life I often had occasion to 
preach the same truth at different times to very dif- 
ferent audiences. In such ways a subject would 
grow on me by its being looked at in different lights 
and under different circumstances ; and I trust that I 
grew under the influence of the subject. I rarely 
wanted to preach once on a subject, without want- 
ing to preach on that subject more than once. And 
each time that I repeated a sermon, its subject seemed 
more important and suggestive than I had ever before 
seen it to be. Fresh phases of the main truth pre- 
sented themselves, and I wanted to press them freshly 
on others. New illustrations were given to enforce the 
truth declared. 

For some months in 1863 I was with my regiment 
on Seabrook Island, in connection with the prolonged 
siege of Charleston. It was wearisome waiting in 
inaction, and it was necessary to strive more than in 
times of active service to keep officers and men up to 
a proper moral and spiritual standard. In this line of 
endeavor, I preached a sermon on ** The Gain of Godli- 
ness," or the practical profitableness of right-doing. 

51 



5 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Not many weeks after this I was taken prisoner on 
Morris Island, and was shut up in Charleston jail. 
Thence I was taken to Columbia jail, where I was 
confined with various officers , from our army and 
navy. Being permitted to preach there on Sundays, 
I preached on the same subject to a different audience, 
and with an increased interest in the subject. After 
my release from the army prison, I preached a third 
time about it in St. Augustine, Florida. And yet 
later, after the close of the war, I found pleasure in 
re-writing and re-preaching sermons on the important 
theme that had kept its growing hold on me. In the 
later form, as a growth from its " Seabrook Island " 
germ, I now include it with the others. 

I preached this sermon on one occasion before the 
students of Amherst College. More than thirty years 
afterwards I met, one summer at the Isles of Shoals, 
a gentleman who was Professor of Greek in the Bos- 
ton Latin School. He referred to this sermon, which 
he had heard as an undergraduate in Amherst. He 
repeated the text and the opening sentences of my 
sermon, and he gave the main points and some of the 
illustrations of the sermon. Yet for years before he 
thus reminded me of it I had not thought of the ser- 
mon. I then looked it up, revised and re-preached it, 
and it is in this shape that it is now given. 



PROFIT OF GODLINESS 

Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 
of the life that now is, and of that which is to come 
(i Tim. 4 : 8). 

Godliness is profitable. Well, if godliness is profit- 
able, godliness ought to be attractive. Men want a 
share in almost anything that gives promise of being 
profitable. Men will work in a powder mill or a 
dynamite factory, will handle nitro-glycerin or live 
electric wires, if it seems profitable to do so. Men 
will work under ground in a coal mine or a sewer, or 
will stand above ground in the light without working ; 
they will " strike " for higher wages, and then keep on 
persistently in the fight, or submit and go back at the 
old rates, as the one course or the other appears to be 
profitable — whether it proves so or not. 

If it promises to be profitable, men will start for the 
Klondike or the Philippines in the autumn, in the face 
of famine or freezing ; or they will take a seat in a 
balloon — with a circus performer, or with a man of 
science, for the next town or for the North Pole. In 
the hope of finding it profitable, men will manufacture 
rum or will sell it, will buy lottery tickets, or gamble 
in stocks, or bet on an election, or a horse-race, or a 

53 



54 Shoes mtd Rations for a Long March 

game of football. Burglars will rob a bank, and 
sometimes bank directors will make terms with the 
burglars-^compound a felony — if it bids fair to be 
profitable. 

Politicians will say or do almost anything, — take 
double pay, or give back what they have taken ; vote 
to increase appropriations, or to reduce allowances; 
favor gold or silver or currency, or all three together, 
as the standard of values ; approve or denounce civil 
service reform ; work to send a party leader to the 
penitentiary or to the national capital ; or talk one 
way and vote another, — according to the prospect of 
profitableness in so doing. 

Most of the hard work, and the folly, and the crime 
of the world are the result of the desire to do what is 
profitable. No such question as. Is it pleasant ? or. Is 
it easy ? or, Is it right ? bears comparison, in potency 
and universal application in the business of everyday 
life, with the question. Is it profitable ? When, there- 
fore, the sure word of God calls attention to a thing 
as ** profitable," it ought to have the ears of every- 
body ; for whatever is really profitable we all want to 
know about. 

But what does God's word say is profitable ? " God- 
liness is profitable." Godliness is God-likeness, being 
like God, being and doing as God would have us to 
be and to do. Jesus Christ showed in his hfe what it 
is to be godly, to be God-like. His example is a guide 
for our conduct if we would have godliness ; and such 
godliness is, we are assured, profitable. Godliness, 



Gain of Godliness 5 5 

as right being and right doing, is declared to be 
profitable. Profitable unto what? Profitable how 
far? Profitable unto all things. That is the assur- 
ance. It could not be more sweeping, — "unto all 
things ; " no limitations of any sort, — unto the utter- 
most, unto all things. 

There are many investments which pay in some 
things, but not in others. Mere " bodily exercise," 
the Bible tells us in this very connection, " profiteth " 
a ** little." Bicycling and golf have their profitable- 
ness in their spheres. Eating and drinking, riding 
and walking, sleeping and waking, talking and reading, 
are profitable in their way at their time. A good 
tailor or milliner may be profitable in the department 
of becoming dress. Making guns and cartridges is a 
profitable business in war-time or in days of labor 
riots ; so is the manufacture of coffins in a season of 
pestilence. Having " a good time " seems more profit- 
able to a " fast " youth over night than it does the next 
morning. Living for wealth, or pleasure, or fame, or 
knowledge, or human love, looks profitable in some 
aspects of life and for the passing hour ; but no one 
of these things, nor all these together, can be called 
profitable unto "all things." 

Only God can give a promise for all things. He 
says that " godliness " — God-serving, right being and 
doing — " is profitable unto all things." Who would 
not have a share in such an investment ? 

But Avhen are these dividends payable ? How soon 
do the returns of godliness as an investment come in ? 



56 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

The text gives a plain answer to these questions. 
" Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
promise oi the life that now is!' That is encouraging. 
The life that now is is an important life to all of us. 
It is the only life that we know much about practically ; 
and it is the life that most of us feel most interest in. 
We should be sorry to have no reward in this life for 
our best doing and being while it is passing. 

It requires faith and courage and patience to make 
an investment of one's powers and possessions in an 
enterprise that gives no promise or hope of any return 
in one's lifetime. A proffer of that sort would not be 
attractive to the average man. Yet God's appeals are 
to the average man, as well as to those above and to 
those below the average. God does not ask those 
who toil for him to wait until another life for their 
best gains. His service gives "promise of the life 
that now is." 

No earthly service pays more surely or more 
promptly than God's service. The right way through 
this life is the best way in this life. Living so as to 
fit one's self for a higher life pays better here and now 
than any other kind of living. Even if there were no 
hereafter, a man would be the gainer here by right 
being and right doing, — by " godliness." The matter- 
of-fact world admits this when it says, " Honesty is 
the best policy." Integrity is always safest for a man. 
God's laws govern not only the highest interests but 
the lowest. His " commandment is exceedincr broad " 
(Psa. 119 : 96). 



'is 



Gain of Godliness 5 7 

If a man wants good health, good looks, good 
temper; if he seeks pleasure, comfort, happiness; if 
he longs for friendship, love, fame; if he is a lawyer, 
a physician, an editor, a student, a teacher, a banker, 
a merchant, a manufacturer, a railroad man, a me- 
chanic, a day laborer, or a gentleman of elegant 
leisure (if there is such a man) ; in whatever line he 
works, or strives, or loafs, or lives, he can best hope 
for success in the line of God's service and God's 
laws, — in practical "godliness." In that line there is 
good reward; in any other line there is poor reward. 
" Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the 
earth : much more the wicked and the sinner " (Prov. 
II : 31). Godliness is profitable in this life. Ungod- 
liness is not profitable in this life, even when it pays 
big dividends. 

I. If a man would be in best physical condition, he 
must bring his body tinder the behests of godliness, as to 
self-control and abstinence and purity. 

"Every man that striveth for the mastery," says 
Paul, "is temperate [is self-controlled] in all things" 
(i Cor. 9 : 25), — puts himself for the time being 
under godly restraints, in order to obtain some 
of the profits of godliness. Paul said this to the 
Corinthians, who in his day had a special interest in 
athletics, and who knew all that was to be known 
about them. His statement of fact is as true in our 
day as it was in his. 

Lovers of indulgence may prate as they please 



58 S/iovs and Rations for a Long March 

about the enjoyableness aiui hcalthfulness of a i;lass 
oi w hisky or wine, or a nuig of beer, or a refreshing 
pipe or cigar, but if they were put in training for a 
boat-race, or for track athletics, or for the highest 
feats of muscuhir strength antl endurance of nerve in 
any sphere, they would have to give up stimulants 
and narcotics, and whatever w'ould tend to w^eaken or 
defile a man. 

Men who have made the training and development 
of the human body their study, and who have money 
and reputation at stake on the condition of those 
whom they train, insist on a pure and abstemious life 
for those whom they are aiding to " strive for the 
mastery" in a coming contest, even if they themselves 
are slaves to sensualism. The captain of a Yale boat 
crew met one of his oarsmen on the street while they 
were training for a race. "Joe," he said. ** you've got 
a quid of tobacco in your mouth. That won't do. 
Spit it out. You can't chew tobacco, and row in this 
race. We can't afford to have you." That captain 
did not speak as a puritan, but as an athlete. 

Even keen-eyed gamblers, forecasting the issue of 
a prize-fight, are too knowing to stake their money on 
a man who has not put himself in ** good condition " 
by practicing in the ways of godliness for a time, so 
for as his body is concerned, in regard to rum and 
tobacco and impurity. Foolish boys may not believe 
this, but wise and observing men do. 

Experience shows that a man's best physical condi- 
tion is attained through purity and uprightness — in the 



Gain of Godliness 59 

realm of godliness. Strength and good looks are 
prompted by well-doing. Vice scars the face, and dis- 
figures the outer man. 

*' Who hath wounds without cause ? who hath red- 
ness of eyes ? They that tany long at the wine ; 
they that go to seek mixed wine " (Prov. 23 : 29, 30). 

Not only red eyes, but sallow faces, and shrunken 
limbs, and failing health, of older and younger wrong- 
doers on every side, bear testimony anew to the truth 
of the inspired declaration that, " If any man defile 
the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the 
temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (i Cor. 
3:17). Godliness is profitable to man physically. 

2. He who would be in best intellectual shape has to 
conforyn to the requirements of a godly life, so as thereby 
to secure peace of mind, a clear and steady purpose, with 
highest fitness for the mental duties of his busy present. 

Worry kills more than work. All realize that re- 
morse is an enemy to repose. Proverbially, " a good 
conscience gives a soft pillow." " But the wicked are 
like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters 
cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my 
God, to the wicked" (Isa. 57 : 20, 21). How many 
times have we seen that inspired declaration verified ! 

The young man who has passed his evening or 
night in dissipation is not worth as much in his studies 
or at his business the next day. The clerk who has 
defrauded his employers cannot fill his place as well 
as while he was yet innocent, even though he is not 



6o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

suspected of wrong-doing. Crime can be covered up 
from others, but God and the guilty man know it; and 
it so struggles for expression that it tortures the heart 
which is striving to hold it in, until insanity or suicide 
is often a result. A guilt-crippled conscience forbids 
the freest working of any living man's intellect. At 
the best, the man is not what he might be, or what 
he was while he followed the more formal demands of 
a godly life. 

The doctor who will lie to his patients loses in large 
measure the power to help his patients by speaking 
the truth convincingly. The merchant or the clerk 
who misrepresents his goods is not the best salesman. 
If a knave is not always a fool, he is always more or 
less foolish. " The devil always leaves a pair of bars 
down," is the world's adage, in view of the sure folly 
of him who is a rascal. In no place is a thoroughly 
godless man a well-balanced man intellectually. He 
is not sure to do the best thing for his own interest. 

As a politician, he is liable to mistake the temper 
of the public he would please, especially where moral 
issues are at stake. As a speculator, he cannot rightly 
read the signs of the times, outside of his own sphere 
of thought and action. As a sharper, he can hardly 
fail to overreach himself in his plans to cheat others. 
" His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, 
and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin " 
(Prov. 5 : 22), " Righteousness keepeth him that is 
upright in the way : but wickedness overthroweth the 
sinner" (Prov. 13 : 6). 



Gain of Godliness 6 1 

One of the biggest-brained men of the last century 
in the United States failed to evidence his greatness, 
or to fill any place for which his intellect fitted him, 
simply through his lack of that measure of godli- 
ness which would enable him to see the advantages 
of a conscience and the practical power of righteous- 
ness. He was governor of a state, a member of Con- 
gress, a cabinet officer, a foreign minister; he was 
nominated for chief justice of the Supreme Court of 
the United States ; and yet he never commanded a 
high degree of respect. Most of you before me now, 
all of the younger generation, would not even recall 
his name if it were given. The answer as to why he 
fell short of true greatness, was always, " He only 
lacked a conscience. He was without godliness, and 
therefore he was a failure." 

Among the poorest men on earth to-day, — men who 
feel poor, and whose poverty bears down on them, — 
are godless men with large bank accounts and no 
comfort-giving fund of godliness. While they can 
get whatever money can buy, they must lack mental 
stimulus, mental nourishment, and mental health, 
which cannot be bought with money, nor secured or 
retained without a measure of godliness. 

The richest men in the world are men with little 
money, but with godly lives and contented spirits ; 
for " godliness with contentment is great gain " 
(i Tim. 6 : 6). Men who live for self never succeed 
in satisfying self, or in quite satisfying anybody else. 
Men who live for others, in Godlike unselfishness, 



62 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

have joy themselves while giving joy to others. In 
every sphere, higher or lower, the man of ripest cul- 
ture, and the man of smallest mental furnishing, has 
no real profit in life or its occupations without god- 
liness of purpose and conduct. And in every one of 
these spheres, " godliness is profitable " to man's intel- 
lectual being, in the life that now is. 

J. In his good name and reputation^ as hi his bodily 
wholeness and his mental vigor, a man is the gainer 
through godliness^ through a life conformed to God's 
laws. 

" A good name is rather to be chosen " — for the 
life that now is — " than great riches " (Prov. 22 : i), and 
the only sure basis of a good name is integrity — or god- 
liness. A man, young or old, may deceive others for a 
time as to his real character, and as to the reputation he 
ought to bear, but in the long run he will come to be 
rated at his true value. 

He may hide temporarily a rent in the fabric of life 
he is weaving, but the time must come when the piece 
is unrolled in the light, and all its imperfections stand 
out clearly. " For there is nothing covered, that shall 
not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known. 
Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness 
shall be heard in the light ; and that which ye have 
spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon 
the housetops" (Luke 12 : 2, 3). 

A good name, a reputation for integrity and godli- 
ness, is valued not merely among the goodly, but 



Gaiji of Godliness 6'iy 

among those who could not claim it for themselves, 
and who might not seem to care for it in anybody. 
The merchant who cheats his customers does not 
want his clerks to cheat him. A band of robbers 
would want an honest treasurer. 

Boys who are beginning to smoke, or drink, or 
gamble, or swear, or go to vile resorts, would be 
startled if they knew with what censure or contempt 
they are looked down at by those whose vices they 
are imitating, — they thinking that they are only for- 
ward or manly. Boys, on the other hand, who seem 
to shut themselves off from good companionship, and 
to be open to the charge of puritanical strictness, 
might be encouraged if they understood how warmly 
their better course is commended by those who do far 
differently. 

I recall a captain in the army, in war time, — the 
Civil War, I mean, — who was dissolute, foul spoken, 
a gambler, a drunkard. He scoffed at religion, and 
reviled its representatives. Yet when his colonel 
asked him to name men of his company for promo- 
tion, he sent into headquarters three names, saying in 
favor of the first two on the list, that they did not 
draw their whisky rations and would not play cards. 
He could drink and gamble recklessly himself; but 
he did not want to trust the lives and interests of a cor- 
poral's squad of his men with a man of like practices, 
if he could find a purer man to lead them. The repu- 
tation of godliness is profitable even among bad men. 

There is no place in this country where godliness — 



64 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

in other men — has a higher market value than among 
the money-changers, and the stock and wheat and 
sugar gamblers, of Chicago, New York, and Phila- 
delphia. One reason why so many unprincipled men 
go among money-changers, or apply for positions of 
trust, making a show of godliness, and then stealing 
all they can lay their hands on, is because the reputa- 
tion of godliness is valued so highly both by the godly 
and by the godless. Other things being equal, a man 
can command a higher price for his services in any 
profession, in any line of business, in any sphere of 
influence or action, if, besides his special capability for 
the place, he is known or supposed to have the added 
qualification of godliness. 

In view of this fact, and of the truth that a man's 
real worth is sure to be known sooner or later, it may 
safely be said that a man — young or old — never 
departs from the line of godliness, never does wrong 
wittingly, never lowers his moral tone or standard, 
without lessening correspondingly his power and his 
reputation for well doing and well being in his best 
sphere. 

Whatever other qualifications a man possesses, if 
he be destitute of godliness, if he does not conform 
to God's requirements for everyday conduct in the 
present existence, he is at a disadvantage in any 
honest business or proper profession, alongside of 
another man equally competent who is godly ; for the 
inspired declaration of our text is reiterated and 
freshly verified in the world's experience day by day. 



Gain of Godliness 65 

" Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 
of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 

The life " which is to come." " Having promise of 
the life which is to come." It would be sad if godli- 
ness gave no promise for the life which is to come, 
but limited its blessings to the life which is. 

The highest rewards of the best earthly service are 
commonly in the future. Only on the lowest plane of 
humanity will a man toil merely for his daily expenses, 
living literally " from hand to mouth," with no thought 
of accumulating profits for use and enjoyment here- 
after. 

The nobler man is always looking ahead. What- 
ever he is doing now, he expects to be doing some- 
thing better by and by. He confidently counts on a 
steady increase of his wages, and acquirements, and 
honors. He would, in fact, be worth little for now if 
he did not have some hope for the future. A youth 
is not content to be always the errand boy, or the 
apprentice, or the farm hand, or the clerk, or the 
freshman. He hopes to rise, and to make progress 
continually. 

Those places of business or of professional occupa- 
tion in our large cities which are most sought after by 
enterprising and ambitious young men, are places 
which proffer little or no pay to beginners, but which 
are supposed to fit those who learn and grow for ser- 
vice in spheres of gain, of influence, and of reputation, 
in after life. That " which is to come," even in the 



66 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

present life, is always counted, by the thoughtful and 
aspiring man, more important, better worth living for, 
than the best possessions of the present. 

A college or university life has its profit and ad- 
vantages to a student, in its associations and com- 
panionships and opportunities while he is still an 
undergraduate ; but the best thing that a young man 
learns while he is an undergraduate is how to learn in 
higher spheres when he has graduated. It is not the 
knowledge itself that he gets, but it is the learning 
how to get and use more knowledge, that is his real 
gain. And this truth has its application in every 
phase of the life that now is. 

Years ago our National Sunday-school Convention, 
which first arranged for our system of International 
Bible Lessons, was held in Indianapolis. It was a 
delightful gathering. Before its adjournment, repre- 
sentative delegates were invited to speak closing 
words to those who for three days had enjoyed sweet 
counsel together. Robert Magill, from Belfast, Ire- 
land, with true Irish wit and keenness said to us : 

"They say that this convention is closing; but I 
think that it is just beginning now that it is ending; 
and there'll be more of it after it's done with, than 
while it was going on." 

That is a truth as to everything that is worth doing 
in this world, or that is being done well : there will be 
more of it after it is done with, than while it was 
going on. God be praised that this is so. 

To God's children everywhere the best is always 



Gam of Godliness 6y 

ahead. Those who yield to the drawings of God's 
love, and seek to be conformed to his image and to 
the likeness of his Son in true godliness, can be sure 
that much as they have had of enjoyment and profit 
in the past, or now have in the present, they are to 
have more in the future, — the best is still to come. 
It is so in " the life that now is," and it is so in the 
life " which is to come." 

Of the life after death, every man has more or less 
thought, and every man wants to receive good in that 
life. He is willing, indeed, to say or to do some 
things now in the hope that it will yet be found to 
have been a profitable investment. There are few 
men who do not at times deny to themselves some 
pleasure or gratification, or perform some service for 
others, or make some gift to a good cause, with this 
hope in mind. And this is, so far as it goes, com- 
mendable. Even an unjust steward would have the 
sense to look ahead for his own selfish interests, and 
that forethought would have divine approval so far. 

But the truth that men generally do not recognize, 
and that many a child of God fails to appreciate at its 
fullest, is the truth declared in our text, that the life 
that is most profitable for now is the life which has 
largest promise for the hereafter. The life that is, 
and the life that is to be, are under the one God — 
*' the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever " (Heb. 
13 : 8); and godliness, or God-likeness, or oneness 
with God in Christ, hath " promise of the life that 
now is, and of that which is to come." There is but 



6S Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

one standard for us to conform to in our secular and 
in our religious life. 

Professor Henry Drummond, who was familiar 
with Christianity and heathenism, and who had 
thought much of both the natural world and the 
spiritual, of the life that is and of that which is to 
come, said that even if he were satisfied that every 
one of the heathen would be saved without a knowl- 
edge of Christianity, that fact would not lessen in the 
slightest degree his personal interest in the cause of 
Christian missions ; for he wanted all the heathen to 
have the advantage in this life of what only Christ 
and Christianity could give them. He realized that the 
character and conduct which gave sure promise for 
the life that is to come, are the very best — the only 
ones really worth having — for the life that now is. 

That, in fact, is what our text assures us. The 
course which has higher reward in the life that now 
is, is the very course which has highest reward in the 
life which is to come. If there were to be no life 
beyond this, we could not do better here and now 
than to do as we should do if we had the hereafter 
always in our thoughts. 

I once knew a devoted home missionary who lived 
always near to God, and who seemed always happy 
in being with men and in doing for them. The Hfe 
that is, and the life that is to come, were ever together 
in his mind. He could hardly speak of one without 
speaking of the other. As he came down from his 
room in the morning, he would tell gratefully of his 



Gain of Godliness 69 

good night's sleep ; he would welcome gratefully the 
new day; he would refer gratefully to his pleasant 
surroundings ; and then he would say gratefully, 
as if summing all together, " All this, and heaven 
besides." That's the way to live ! that's the way to 
feel! 

So it comes to pass that he who is best fitted for 
the duties and enjoyments of this life is therewith best 
fitted for the duties and enjoyment of heaven. He 
who can have joy in the eternal hereafter, has joy in 
every passing day. He who is not a submissive, 
trustful child of God, following in the path of duty in 
true godliness, in true Christ-likeness, is not fully 
fitted to work on a farm, to be a clerk, to do business 
for himself, to study, to be married or to live single, 
or, in fact, to do any good thing anywhere to best 
advantage. But he who is God's obedient, trustful 
child, doing and being just what God would have him 
be and do, can be made most effective and have most 
joy in his proper earthly sphere here and now, and 
he shall have gladness and power forevermore; for 
" godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise 
of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." 



UNIVERSAL LONGING FOR JESUS 



IV 

UNIVERSAL LONGING FOR JESUS 

My army-prison life in Columbia, South Carolina, 
called on me for fresh and earnest work as a chaplain, 
even with all its limitations and drawbacks. My only 
book for study was my Httle pocket-Bible ; but I found 
that Bible more suggestive than ever. I had available 
no notes of previous study to aid me in my preach- 
ing ; but souls were there for whom I felt responsi- 
bility, and what they showed of their needs constantly 
appealed to me. 

I conducted a service of worship, with preaching, 
every Sunday morning in our officers' quarters. 
Then, by special permission, I went out into the jail- 
yard, to preach to the army privates and navy sailors 
who were prisoners there. Standing on the jail steps, 
as I talked to the soldiers and sailors before me in 
the yard, a Confederate officer stood by me to note 
my words. A Confederate soldier also, with rifle 
and fixed bayonet, stood by my side to keep me 
within bounds. These things did not promote free- 
dom of utterance ; yet they did tend to intensify my 
feeling on the theme of my preaching. Talks with 
fellow-prisoners, officers and men, about my subject 

73 



74 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of preaching, gave me new points of view and prompt- 
ings to fresh words. Hence my Columbia life was, 
in a sense, fruitful of sermon-themes. I gained from 
it, even if no one else did. 

Having preached there on soul-thirst and its satis- 
fying, I was led to preach on another phase of the 
same great subject, while pointing out the universal 
longing for that which only Jesus can supply. Read- 
ing the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, I found a 
passage which emphasized this truth. That gave me 
a new sermon-theme. After I was released from 
prison, I preached again on that subject before my 
regiment in St. Augustine, and thus again and again 
as the subject grew on me, and as, I trust, I grew in 
appreciation of the important theme. 

One of the later growths from that fruitful germ is 
here given. 



ALL MEN SEEK JESUS 

And when they had found him^ they said unto him, 
All men seek for thee (Mark i : 37). 

"All men seek for thee!" Seek for whom? 
Seek for Jesus of Nazareth, the new Prophet of 
Galilee, the mighty Wonder-worker, the matchless 
Physician. 

The son of Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth, who 
for thirty years had lived a quiet and humble life in 
that Galilean village, suddenly, while away from his 
home, had been pointed out by the greatest prophet 
and preacher of the day as God's peculiar represen- 
tative among men, Israel's Messiah, for whom an ex- 
pectant world was waiting. Then, while men looked 
and wondered, this Jesus began to preach and to 
teach, and to do mighty works of healing and help- 
ing. His fame spread abroad, in Jerusalem and 
Judea, and in Galilee and Samaria ; and his old neigh- 
bors and townspeople heard of him with amazement. 
His name was on all lips. The cures wrought by him 
were beyond all that had been known before. 

After an absence for a season from his new home 
in Capernaum, Jesus came back to that city by the 
sea, and was seen and heard in its synagogue on the 

75 



76 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

sabbath day. He spoke with marvelous power. He 
cast out an unclean spirit from a man demon-possessed. 
And from the synagogue he went into the home of 
Peter, and raised up to full health the mother of his 
disciple Peter's wife, by a touch and a word. Caper- 
naum thrilled with the wonderful story of this wonder- 
ful man. ''And at even, when the sun did set," — 
when the close of the sacred day permitted the neces- 
sary work involved, — *' they brought unto him all that 
were diseased," — in Capernaum, — ''and them that 
were possessed with devils. And all the city was 
gathered together at the door. And he healed many 
that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many 
devils" (Mark i : 32-34). When the night shut in, 
Jesus ceased for a time his work of healing, and sought 
in sleep the rest he needed. 

This ministry of good to needy men was costly 
work for Jesus. All loving service for God or man is 
expensive to the doer. Jesus never gave a healing 
touch, or spoke a sympathizing word, or looked a 
loving look, without an outgiving of his innermost 
self in the act, and a drain, or a strain, of his God- 
given forces. And he who was made flesh, in order 
that he might be touched with the feeling of our 
infirmities, or weaknesses, became wearied, and must 
find refreshment in sleep in the intervals of toil, that 
he might gain new strength for new works of love. 

While Jesus slept in his Capernaum resting-place, 
many who could not sleep, for pain or for deferred 
hope, watched anxiously, with heavy eyes and aching 



Universal Longing for yesus 77 

hearts, for the coming dawn, when they might come, 
or be borne, again into the presence of the mighty 
Healer, with their plea to him for help and health. 

As for him, his mission was not to them alone, nor 
was it for the mere cure of bodily disorders. ** In 
the [early] morning, rising up a great while before 
day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, 
and there prayed " (Mark i : 35). Before a new day 
of toil should begin, Jesus must have fresh com- 
munion with his Father in heaven, and gain fresh 
strength from above for the fresh outgiving of himself 
to others. Therefore he rose this early to pray. 

Meanwhile the surging crowd of sufferers in Caper- 
naum clamored for him at the door of Simon. " And 
Simon and they that were with him followed after 
him. And when they had found him, they said unto 
him, All men seek for thee." 

Did the disciples of Jesus realize the truth they 
uttered in that morning hour in Capernaum ? Do we 
ourselves realize it, in its magnitude and force, as we 
repeat those words here to-day ? ** All men seek for 
thee," Jesus of Nazareth! 

Jesus of Nazareth was Jesus the Christ, — the Christ 
in the promise of whose coming the first sinning man 
was comforted, and to whom the last of our race 
must still look as the only source of hope ; the Mes- 
siah whom the prophets in all ages had foretold, and 
whose praises the psalmists had sung ; the Saviour 
whose earthly advent was the grand central fact in the 
history of the universe, heralded as it was by the 



"j^ Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Angel of the Lord, and rejoiced over by all the 
'' multitude of the heavenly host." 

" For him swung back the starry bound ; 
Deepened far up the great profound ; 
All heaven swept outward at his birth, 
And naught was narrow but the earth." ^ 

Ah ! it was truer far than the disciples knew, that 
all men were seeking or were longing for Jesus, as he 
prayed that morning in the solitary place near Caper- 
naum. All, everywhere, throughout this sin-cursed 
and sorrow-burdened world ; hearts heavy with a 
sense of guilt and grief and sad forebodings, longing 
for pardon and purity and peace, needing sympathy 
and comfort and help, aspiring to better things, un- 
satisfied with what was already theirs, and craving 
fuller, truer life for themselves and for theirs ; all, all 
were vainly, vaguely reaching out after that which 
Jesus, and only Jesus, could meet and supply ; even 
though the whisper of his precious name had never 
fallen on their ears. 

And to-day, as then, all, everywhere, are seeking 
Jesus ; not in every instance seeking him intelligently 
or consciously, but seeking him, at least instinctively 
and very really, in that they have wants which he 
alone can satisfy ; and that they are craving constantly 
that fulness which it hath pleased the Father should 
dwell in him. 

This is the truth which I would impress upon you 
all to-day. 

1 Louisa Bushnell. 



Universal Lo7igmg for yesus 79 

7. Even the heatlieUy in distant lands where no 
Christian missionary has ever preacJied of Jesus, are 
seeking Jiiin to-day; and they cannot be satisfied with- 
out him. 

Every heart is human, and every human heart is 
formed and framed with the capacity of aspiration 
after God, and of the recognition of his Hkeness when 
it is presented to them. Jesus was the Desire of all 
nations before he was born in the manger of Bethle- 
hem. He came to meet an already existing universal 
need. The wise men of the East, who came seeking 
him before they had seen him, were representative of 
all the outside nations of the earth. And every 
heathen soul, everywhere, is seeking still the Desire 
of all nations, with an instinctive longing, — as the 
helpless new-born babe seeks, in his unconscious cry, 
the food of nature ; or as the parched lips, in the de- 
lirium of fever, seek the cool water that the wander- 
ing intellect cannot ask for. 

They are seeking him in that they need him, and 
that they crave the results of his redemption. Their 
every breath of spiritual want is really a soul-aspira- 
tion after oneness with him in whom " dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily " (Col. 2 : 9). God 
be praised, that man, created in his Maker's likeness, 
has not, even in his ruin, lost utterly a yearning for 
restored communion with the divine Father through 
his only begotten Son ! 

Even human love and sympathy and help are 
sought by those who never knew them. If you have 



8o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

ever visited among the outcast, or have been much in 
the rescue homes of the slums when new Httle ones 
were brought in there, you have seen no sight sadder 
than that of neglected children, with pinched faces, 
dull eyes, and shrinking frames, who have never seen 
a look of love, nor heard a word of tenderness, nor 
felt a kindly touch ; but who, with all their heavy, ach- 
ing hearts, are longing for that which they have 
never yet experienced. 

I can never forget the incident which first impressed 
this truth upon my soul. It was more than fifty years 
ago. I was in a city mission school as a visitor. The 
school was in a dingy garret, in an old building by 
the riverside. A few teachers, and a score or so of 
*\ (* rs&^<i boys and girls from the wretched homes of 

the wretched neighborhood, were gathered there. 
As I sat, looking on with curiosity and wonder, — for 
such a sight was new to me, — I saw a boy, all by 
himself in a corner, more wretched looking, if possi- 
ble, than any of his fellows. Dirty, ragged, dull and 
heavy, he seemed scarcely human. His face was 
badly swollen, as from an inflamed tooth, so as to 
twist his eyes out of shape ; and he sat listlessly, 
taking no note of what was going on. 

As I watched him, he was trying clumsily to adjust 
about his face a ragged, filthy bandage that had fallen 
from its place. Touched with pity, I stepped across 
the room, and taking the bandage from his hands, 
with a kindly word to him, I folded it anew, passed it 
about his swollen cheek, and fastened it above his 



Universal Longing for yesus 8i 

head. As, with another expression of sympathy, I 
took away my hands, that Httle fellow turned up his 
distorted face to mine with a look I had never seen 
the like of before, but having once seen, I could never 
forget. 

It was a look of surprise and wonder, and half joy, 
half question, as if a result of an utterly new experi- 
ence in his weary young life. It seemed to say, 
"What is all this? No hand was ever before laid on 
me except in roughness or anger. I have learned to 
shrink and groan and suffer ; but until now I have 
never known a touch of tenderness or sympathy. Yet 
how good it is ! This, I suppose, is what I've been 
longing for." 

That one look was everything to me. It helped to 
shape my new life-course. And it was the means of 
that boy's saving. Jesus had sent me there to do 
just that, and the boy was thus helped to find the 
Saviour he had before been seeking unconsciously. 
I have never doubted since then that every needy 
soul is seeking Jesus. 

Look at the forms of the world's religions, outside 
of Christianity, to-day. Every one of them shows a 
seeking after that which Jesus gives, while no one 
of them proffers a substitute for him as a Saviour. 
Brahmanism emphasizes the spirituality of God, but 
it shows no method of approach to the primal Source 
of all good. Boodhism teaches the wretchedness 
of sin-cursed man, but it knows no possibility of 
his redemption. Zoroastrianism tells of a ceaseless 



82 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

conflict between good and evil, but it points to no 
spiritual helper of man in his struggle. Confucianism 
presents the primal perfection of man as an ideal of 
aspiration, but it leaves man to toil on toward this 
ideal unaided and hopeless. So on through all the 
fal .e or faulty religions, ruder or more refined. Every 
outpouring of blood in sacrifice to idol or to fetish is 
the proffer of substitute life, and the expression of a 
longing for a common life with Deity ; and every pil- 
grimage, or penance, or act of devotion in any form, 
is another indication of the human soul's outreaching 
for that peace which is found in Christ, and nowhere 
else in the universe. 

Oh, the cravings of heathen humanity for that which 
Jesus proffers to all the world to-day ! Oh, the 
"groanings which cannot be uttered" (Rom. 8 : 26) 
in heathen hearts groping in darkness after him who 
"■ brought life and immortality to light " (2 Tim. I : lo) 
in his gospel ! God hasten the glad day when to 
Jesus shall be given *'the heathen for" an ''inherit- 
ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for" a 
"possession" (Psa. 2:8); when *'all the ends of the 
earth" will look to him as the Saviour, and "be satis- 
fied . . . with" his "likeness" (Psa. 17 : 15). What 
are we doing to bring that day's dawn ? 

2. Meanwhile, not only the heathen, but all who in 
Christian lands are zvithout Christ, or who are not in 
CJiristy are seekhtg him. 

If the heathen who have never heard of Jesus are 



Universal Longing for yesMS 83 

his seekers, much more are they, in any land, who 
have known of what he proffers, and who have seen 
the influence of his Hfe in the words and ways of his 
followers. Every man wants moral wholeness, and 
knows that he lacks it. None stand complete except 
in Jesus (Col. 2 : 10). Those who would be whole, 
are really seekers after him who alone can make them 
so. They may conceal their seeking from others ; 
they may even refuse to admit it to themselves ; but 
because their hearts are human, their hearts need, and 
at times long after, fulness and peace and rest in 
Christ. 

Ah ! if all breasts were open to the gaze of all, it 
would be seen that many a seemingly placid bosom 
covers a troubled conscience and an aching heart, and 
that many a soul supposed to be unconcerned, and at 
ease in a Christless life, is in a restless turmoil of im- 
pulse and indecision. Some of you who hear me 
now know how my words fit your own case, even 
though your seat-mate has no thought of this. 

Said a soldier to me, as we talked together of his 
soul's welfare in my tent before Richmond in war- 
time : 'Tm a very strange man, Chaplain! Now that 
I'm talking with you, I realize the truth of all you 
say, and I'm not a hypocrite in agreeing to it all. 

** But I'll go out from your tent, and it'll not be an 
hour before I've forgotten all about this talk, and am 
just as wicked and as wild as ever. And I'll not 
think of religion again until, perhaps, I'm on guard 
some night. Then, when I'm all by myself, and the 



84 Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 

camp is quiet, as rm pacing back and forth on my 
beat, it will all come over me again, and I'll see just 
what a sinner I am, and how like a fool I've acted ; 
and I'll resolve that, if only I live until morning, I'll 
be a very different man. And I'll think that way 
until the 'relief comes 'round, and I go to the guard 
quarters again. 

**And then, will you believe it, Chaplain? it'll not 
be five minutes before I'm swearing or scoffing as if 
I'd never had a serious thought in my life. O Chap- 
lain ! I'm a very strange man, sir ; a very strange man." 

Was that man, after all, so very strange and 
singular? Did you never know anything like that 
in another man's experience? 

There are, it is true, some persons who fail to re- 
cognize, or who refuse to admit, the outreaching of 
their souls for Jesus, until they are in direst peril or 
distress. But they are seekers tJicn, if not before. 

"Do you ever pray, my friend?" I asked of a 
wounded soldier in the prison hospital in Charleston. 
"Sometimes, Chaplain," he answered. "I prayed 
last Saturday night, when we were in that fight at 
Wagner. I guess everybody prayed then.'" 

Yes, everybody prays at one time or another. 

** O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh 

come," — if not in hope and faith, then in fear and 

despair. 

" ' There is no God,' the foolish saith, 
But none ' There is no sorrow,' 
And nature oft the cry of faith 
In bitter need will borrow : 



Universal Longing for yesus 85 

Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 

By wayside graves are raised, 
And lips say ' God be pitiful,* 

Who ne'er said ' God be praised.' 

Be pitiful, O God ! " » 

Sooner or later, my friend still out of Christ, your 
voice will be raised to Jesus, in faith or in fear, and 
you will admit that he is the Saviour you seek. God 
grant that your prayer may not come too late ! 

J. Those, also, who have known Jesus, and who 
have felt the sweet influence of his loving presence, de- 
sire a closer union with him ; and so are still his seekers. 

True love increases, not lessens, with intimacy. 
None seek more earnestly in love than they who know 
most of the joys of loving companionship. Many of 
those who were seeking Jesus, in that morning hour 
in Capernaum, had seen and heard him the day before, 
and therefore sought him again. He who remembers 
precious interviews with Jesus, longs for others like 
them. 

You who have, at any time, known the comfort of 
a sense of the presence of Jesus in your hearts, and 
have rested for a single hour in his love, cannot be 
contented if you are for an hour without such peace. 
You are seekers after its renewal. You who have 
loved him longest and most, are most desirous of utter 
oneness of life with him. The more you love him, 
the more you want to love him more. 

There are no such seekers after Jesus as those who 

1 Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



86 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

have already found him. The constant prayer of 
every such seeker is : 

" More love to thee, O Christ, 

More love to thee ! 
Hear thou the prayer I make, 

On bended knee ; 
This is my earnest plea, 
More love, O Christ, to thee, 

More love to thee ! " ^ 

If only the seeking after Jesus were as earnest and 
hearty as it is widespread and ceaseless, more would 
have success in their finding, whether they have known 
much of him or little. "■ Ye shall seek me, and find 
me," is the promise, ''when ye shall search for me 
with all your heart" (Jer. 29 : 13). 

"With all your heart " ! Do you know what that 
means ? Let me tell you. A soldier who had been 
long in Southern prisons called at my home after the 
war. I had met him first while we were prisoners in 
Charleston jail. Afterwards we were together in the 
jail at Columbia. He had gone to Belle Island. 
Three years had passed ; and now, as we met once 
more, I asked him of his later prison experiences. 

*' I don't remember much about it, Chaplain," he 
said, **only that I wanted bread. I know it was 
twenty-three months after my capture before I was 
released ; but after I left Columbia it is all confused 
in my mind. I know I was at Belle Island awhile, 
and a long time at Andersonville. 

1 Mrs. E. p. Prentiss. 



Universal Longing for yesus 87 

** How hungry I was at Andersonville ! For awhile 
I used to want to hear from home. Then I grew so 
hungry that I didn't think of home. For awhile I 
wanted to escape. But by and by I was too hungry 
to care for that. I only wanted bread, bread, bread. 
Oh, how hungry I was ; and how I longed for bread !" 

That, my friends, was longing for bread ''with all 
the heart," — with one supreme, overmastering desire. 
Home and friends, and liberty and life, lost sight of, 
thought of, in the ceaseless craving for needful food ! 
Blessed are they who do thus hunger after the Bread 
of Life in Jesus Christ ; "for they shall be filled " 
(Matt. 5 : 6). 

And now, my fellow-disciples, in view of this truth 
that all are seeking Jesus, in heathen lands and in 
Christian lands, what is our duty, what is our responsi- 
bility, as to bringing a knowledge of Jesus to those 
who are his seekers, and as to urging his claims upon 
their love and confidence ? Have we nothing to do 
in carrying the gospel story to lands where it is yet 
untold, but where its truths are longed for? 

" Shall we, whose souls are lighted 
With wisdom from on high, 
Shall we to men benighted 
The lamp of life deny ? " * 

Is it of no concern to us that some who are by our 
sides are far away from Jesus, yet are wishing to be 
near him ? Shall we refuse them our help, in word 
or deed, because they have never asked our aid ? 

1 Bishop Heber's Missionary Hymn. 



SS SJioes and Rations for a Long March 

Suppose that just here and now, while I am preach- 
ing in this pulpit, one were to rise up in this congre- 
gation, and cry out, piteously, " Sirs, what must I do 
to be saved? " would any of us sit unconcernedly with 
that call ringing in our ears ? Would not all of us be 
quick to proffer help or counsel ? I knew of an oc- 
currence of this very kind. 

It was at the mid-week prayer-meeting of a church 
in a New England town. It was an ordinary meet- 
ing, and there were ordinary prayers and ordinary 
talks being made. Suddenly a man rose up in the 
back part of the room, who had just slipped in from 
the street and taken his seat there. In a voice quiver- 
ing with emotion, and tense with agony of spirit, he 
spoke out : *' My friends ! you all know me. I am a 
moral wreck. A few minutes ago I was out in the 
darkness, proposing to put an end to this wretched 
life of mine. But I saw the light in here, and I said 
to myself, Cannot the Saviour, to whom they are pray- 
ing in there, save even me ? So I came in ; and now 
I ask you to pray for me. I am a lost sinner. Can 
you help me to the Saviour? " 

The speaker was a man who had stood high in his 
profession, and in the respect of the community, but 
who had gone down step by step, through the habit of 
drink, until he was an object of general pity. And 
now his agonized cry, "I am a lost sinner. Can you 
help me to the Saviour? " pierced every heart in that 
room. 

There were no longer any ordinary prayers, or 



Universal Longing for yesus 89 

ordinary talks in tJiat prayer-meeting that evening. 
One after another, men rose up to pray with and for 
that man, as if their heart depths were being poured 
out to Jesus. And then those disciples of the Saviour 
gathered about that poor sinner, to speak tender and 
earnest words of encouragement and guidance, and 
they fairly lifted him up to Jesus on the arms of their 
love and faith. Yet that man's need was just as great 
before he cried out for help as afterward. Why did 
they wait for him to tell them so ? 

The duty of discerning an obvious need is as posi- 
tive as the duty of supplying a need when it is made 
known. It is an Oriental saying that *' It is to our 
shame if a beggar has to ask our help," for we ought 
to see his need and meet it before he speaks of it. 
Peculiarly is this true of the need of needs of the 
human soul for Jesus. When we understand that all 
are seeking him, we ought to be helping all to find 
him, without being asked by them to do so. 

Passing up Broadway one day, I saw a group 
rapidly gathering at a street corner. Pushing my way 
into the growing throng, I saw a bright-faced child, 
not above five or six years old. He was well-dressed, 
and gave every appearance of belonging to a home 
of refinement. The little fellow had been seen tod- / 
dling along, all alone, in the busy street, and had at- 
tracted attention as a lost child. Quickly a group had 
gathered about him in loving interest. 

As I looked down upon the boy in tender sym- 
pathy, he turned up his face to mine with an expres- 



90 Shoes and Rations Jor a Long March 

sion of confidence and longing, and reaching out his 
tiny hand toward me, he said, in a gentle, plaintive 
voice, ** Please, won't you show me my way home? " 
Instantly that child-like cry for help went to the heart 
of every looker-on, and I doubt if there was a busy 
man in all that city throng — certainly not a father 
there — who wouldn't have dropped eveiything just 
then to help that lost child homeward. 

Yet that lost child was just as surely seeking his 
father's house when his tired feet were pattering along 
the crowded way, himself unnoticed in the hurrying 
throng, as when his thrilling call for help came up in- 
to the ears of those who stood about him at the street 
corner ; and one who had stopped to care for the 
child before a word was spoken, would have deserved 
more credit than us all. 

There are many of these lost children seeking their 
Father's house, in the busy way we travel. Let us 
show them the way home ! 



A SEED SERMON 



A SEED SERMON 

My only life as a '* settled " pastor was at St. Augus- 
tine, where I joined my regiment after my release 
from Libby Prison. Not only my regiment was there, 
but another regiment of my brigade ; the convalescent 
camp for officers of the entire Department of the 
South was there; teachers of the ''freedmen" were 
there, and some prominent civilians from the North ; 
and there was quite a population of St. Augustine 
natives remaining, — making in all a considerable popu- 
lation to be cared for religiously. I was the only 
Protestant clergyman in the city, as the pastors of the 
local Protestant churches had gone into the interior 
on the approach of the Union forces. In this state 
of things, the military authorities placed the Protestant 
churches at my disposal, and I did the best I could to 
meet the existing needs. 

We had church services both morning and evening. 
We had a Sunday-school in the afternoon, and there 
were meetings to be looked after at different hours in 
the gathering places of the newly-emancipated freed- 
men. We had also mid-week prayer-meetings, and 
we had at times special services, including the celebra- 

93 



94 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

tion of the Lord's Supper. That was a portion of my 
life that I hope I profited by. My opportunities were 
certainly rich and important. 

One of the subjects that we really had to consider 
was the absolute certainty of reaping according to the 
sowing. Both in the North and in the South, among 
the whites and the blacks, there was being gathered a 
hai^vest that had been long before sowed for. And in 
the fields of both good and evil there was seed being 
sown before my eyes continually, beyond the realiza- 
tion or thought of the sowers. Therefore a theme 
that for the time impressed me, and that I sought to 
impress on those of my charge, was the certainty of 
reaping what one has sown. 

I wrote and preached a sermon on that subject, and 
the subject and sermon proved to be a germ for future 
growth. I repeated it in various forms in different 
fields of army life. After the war I preached on 
the subject in civil life, especially before the young in 
boarding-schools and colleges near and far. One 
phase of that preaching is here given. It is a good 
thought for to-day. 



SEED-SOWING AND GROWING 

Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever 
a man soweth^ that shall he also reap (Gal. 6 : 7). 

Only God is never mocked, never deceived, never 
misled by appearances. We can deceive others. We 
can deceive ourselves. But we cannot deceive God. 

Self-deception is, in fact, a great deal commoner, 
and a great deal easier, than self-knowledge. Who 
of us can say that he is perfectly clear and plain to 
himself? that concerning himself he cannot be de- 
ceived ? 

" What am I, and how ? If reply there be, 

In unsearchable chaos 'tis cast. 
Though the soaring spirit of restless man 
Might the boundary line of the universe scan, 
And measure and map its measureless plan, — 

The gift of self-knowledge were last ! " ^ 

Moreover, it is a great deal commoner, and a great 
deal easier, for us to deceive our fellows than it is for 
us to disclose ourselves to our fellows. 

No human being ever fully understood another 
human being. Parents cannot read the hearts of 
their own children. Husbands and wives can be one 

1 Frances Ridley Havergal. 

95 



g6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

in everything else rather than in an inter-knowledge 
of each other's hearts. Brothers and sisters are, at 
the closest, strangers to the real inner selves of their 
brothers and sisters. And the best of human friends, 
in spite of all their love and longing, often misunder- 
stand and are misunderstood by one another, some- 
times in the very things and at the very points where 
most they strive after an absolute revealing. 

" We hold our dear ones with a firm, strong grasp ; 
We hear their voices, look into their eyes ; 
And yet, betwixt us in that clinging clasp, 
A distance hes." ^ 

" The heart knoweth his own bitterness ; and a 
stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy" (Prov. 
14 : 10). "Walls of adamant,'' says one, ** could 
not more effectually separate us from direct spiritual 
communing than the state in which God has created 
us." He, therefore, who boasts that he can read his 
fellows through and through, shows how thoroughly 
he is deceived in this supposing that he cannot be 
deceived. Only He who made the heart of man 
knows the heart of man, and needeth not that any 
should testify of man, because he knows what is in 
man, and what man is (John 2 : 24, 25). 

So " God is not mocked," is not deceived. He 
knows the work of his own hands : '* Neither is there 
any creature that is not manifest in his sight : but 
all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of 
him with whom we have to do" (Heb. 4 : 13). 

1 Elinor Gray. 



A Seed Sermon 97 



"The Lord seeth not as man seeth ; for man looketh 
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on 
the heart" (i Sam. 16 : 7). And just in proportion 
as the All-knowing One discloses his knowledge of 
his creatures to his creatures, do any of his creatures 
know their fellows or know themselves. **The secret 
things belong unto the Lord our God : but those 
things which are revealed belong unto us and to our 
children for ever" (Deut. 29 : 29). 

Our text gives us the key to most of our knowledge 
of all that breathes or lives. God, who is never de- 
ceived, wills that the inner being of his creatures shall 
be shown outwardly in the reproduction after its kind, 
of every sentient being, and living thing, and vital 
thought, in nature. "Ye shall know them by their 
fruits" (Matt 7 : 16). "Whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap." The fruit that is proves the 
seed that was. 

From the beginning this has been God's law. At 
the creation, " God said. Let the earth bring forth 
grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yield- 
ing fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon 
the earth : . . . the living creature after his kind, cattle, 
and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his 
kind: and it was so" (Gen. i : 11, 24). And so it 
has been, and still is. " Can the fig tree, my brethren, 
bear olive berries? either a vine, figs?" (J as. 3:12.) 
"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; but a 
corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit " (Matt. 7 : 16, 17). 



98 Shoes and Ratio7is for a Long March 

The appearance of a tree may deceive the eye ; 
but its fruit will prove its quality and inner life beyond 
a question. Many might mistake the leaf and the 
flower of the bitter orange for those of the sweet 
orange ; but no one would mistake the fruit of the 
one for the other, in their tasting. Roasted peas 
have been palmed off for coffee in the grocery store 
and in the boarding-house, but what manipulation 
would make a planted pea bring forth a Java coffee 
bush ? There is a kind of darnel, or rye grass, called 
by the botanists lolium murinuni^ or "mouse- rye," 
because it so counterfeits the real grain that the very 
mice are deceived by it. But would a kernel of that, 
in the richest soil, ever produce the other? No ! 
Mice or men may be deceived, but "■ God is not 
mocked." 

God orders nature in all her processes, and con- 
forms her to his eternal laws. 'Whatsoever [seed] a 
man soweth, that [and that alone, stalk and leaf, and 
flower and fruit, each after its kind] shall he also 
reap." 

As in the lower forms of animate life, so also in the 
higher. As in matter, so in mind. Elements of 
taste, peculiarities of temper, habits of thought and 
word and conduct, are all of them germinal and repro- 
ductive, bringing forth in their development ever 
after their kind; ''first the blade, then the ear, after 
that the full corn in the ear" (Mark 4 : 28). 

The boy Galileo, studying the theory of the spin- 
ning-tops his playfellows were whipping on the school- 



A Seed Sermon 99 



grounds, was sowing the seeds of philosophical dis- 
covery he later reaped so richly. David Wilkie, 
sketching before he could read, and beginning to paint 
before he could spell, drawing his schoolmates' por- 
traits for two marbles or an apple each ; James Fer- 
guson, as a shepherd's boy, on his back in the open 
field by night, measuring the distances between stars 
on a string of beads ; Napoleon, wakening the echoes 
of the Corsican grotto with the explosions of his toy 
cannon ; and Garfield, drinking in a love of country 
and a longing for high achievement from the rude 
ballads of the war of 1 8 1 2, sung to him by his dear 
old mother in his childhood's border home ; all of 
these were sowing seeds of taste and acquirement and 
action, to bring forth fruit in due season, each "■ after 
his kind." 

Fairy tales, read with wonderment and delight in 
early childhood, color, through their reproduction, the 
adult imagination, often with reference to ordinary 
home life or social relations ; while the ghost stories 
heard in the nursery, or in the kitchen, are seeds of 
terror and superstition which are fruitful in later life, 
even in minds well stored and cultivated otherwise. 
And so the whole field of the intellect is filled in ac- 
cordance with the law of sowing and growing. 

Similarly, also, the soul is supplied. Moral quali- 
ties have germs, — germs which bring forth fruit, each 
after its kind. Our first parents sowed, in Eden, for 
the race, the seeds of unbelief and disobedience when 
they distrusted God's word and violated his com- 



LofC. 



TOO Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

mand ; and in the hearts of all their descendants the 
fruit of that sowing is manifest to-day. Timothy, the 
youthful bishop, showed in his "faith unfeigned" (i 
Tim. I : 5), and in his other fitness for the great work 
assigned him, how carefully good seed was sown in 
his heart "from a child" (2 Tim. 3 : 15), when he 
learned the lessons of Holy Scripture from the lips 
and lives of mother and grandmother, — lessons of 
obedience and fidelity and faith. And so it has been 
ever since. 

"A wonderful thing is a seed! 

The one thing deathless forever, — 

The one thing changeless, utterly true, 
Forever old, and forever new, 
And fickle and faithless never. 

"Plant blessings, and blessings will blow ; 

Plant hate, and hate will grow. 
You can sow to-day ; to-morrow shall bring 
The blossom that proves what sort of thing 

Is the seed, the seed that you sow." 

"Be not deceived," nor think you can deceive 
God. "God is not mocked — for whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap." 

The fruit of sown seed will ever be reaped in kindy 
but not in degree, with its planting. The botanist 
Ray counted 2,000 grains of Indian corn on a plant 
sprung from one seed ; 4,000 seeds on one plant of 
sunflower; 32,000 seeds on a single poppy plant, and 
36,000 seeds on one plant of tobacco. 

You will notice in this exhibit that the meaner the 



A Seed Ser^non loi 



stock the bigger the crop. Tobacco propagates 
eighteen times as fast as Indian corn. That is the 
way of the world — as the world is. And here is an 
added reason why we should look well to the seed 
planted. 

It has been shown that, at the rate of multiplica- 
tion evidenced of a single bean, the third year's 
growth of a bean would amount to nearly 43,000,000 
bushels ; and that in eight years ^s> much corn might 
spring from one seed as w^ould supply all mankind 
with bread for a year and a half 

The planted acorn springs up, not a single acorn, 
but an oak, which shall bear ten thousand times ten 
thousand acorns, and still the end is not. The ** hand- 
ful of corn in the earth upon the top of the moun- 
tains " is multiplied until '* the fruit thereof shall shake 
like Lebanon" (Psa. 72 : 16); and the bread cast upon 
the waters (Eccl. 11 : i ) is found after many days, not 
as it was scattered, ^' bare grain" (i Cor. 15 : 37), but 
in the waving expanses of vast fields of golden ears. 

In the mental and moral spheres, likewise, the fruit, 
in thought and act, is in many-folded reproduction of 
that which in kind was sown. As it has been said : 
*' Sow an act, and you reap a habit ; sow a habit, and 
you reap a character ; sow a character, and you reap 
a destiny." 

The lad puffing at a bit of lighted rattan or twisted 
paper, in imitation of the genteel smoker, is sowing 
seed which is in harvest when the strong man with 
sodden brain and disordered digestion, or with can- 



I02 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

cered lips, is, in the sight of all eyes but his own, the 
slave unto death of his love of tobacco. The little 
fellow who just a few times plays marbles " for keeps," 
or the youth who occasionally invests in a raffle at a 
church fair, sows seed w^hich finds fruitage when the 
excited gambler stakes his wrecked fortune, his char- 
acter, and his very soul, on the throw of the dice or 
the turn of the cards, in his last hopeless venture of 
chance. 

Seed-planting and harvest stand over against each 
other in the boy who shows meanness in dividing a 
school lunch, or in refusing the use of his bat, or sled, 
or bicycle to his playfellow, and the close-fisted miser 
whose heart is shut against every call of the needy 
for help or sympathy ; in the child at the family din- 
ner, sipping claret or home-made wine (such home- 
made wine as made Noah so disgracefully drunken) 
(Gen. 9: 20, 21), and the hopeless sot on his way, 
through the gutter, to the drunkard's grave and hell ; 
in the free use of boyish slang, and the impious utter- 
ances of the blasphemer ; in the first over-stepping 
the bounds of modesty, and the terrible end of the 
libertine or prostitute ; in the early neglect of God's 
house and word, with jokes over sacred themes, and 
the gloomy lot of the dark-browed infidel. 

Oh ! there is a world of truth in one of the blunt 
satirical suggestions of a slang-writer of our day : 
** Boys, if you want a sure crop, and a big yield, sow 
wild oats !"^ 

ijosh Billings. 



A Seed Sermon 103 



He who soweth the wind ** shall reap the whirl- 
wind " (Hos. 8 : 7). The buried dragon's teeth in 
the fable sprang up not teeth merely, but armed men 
ready for the fight. So of every element of evil in 
the soul, — the reproduction in augmented force and 
reach is as sure as is its reappearance after its kind. 

The boy Nero, of such native gentleness that he 
sheds tears over the sufferings of insect life (and even 
at the last he has an unknown friend to strew flowers 
on his bloody grave), has seed of blackest crime sown 
in his heart by his mother's guilty example. He is 
but seventeen when she murders her husband, his 
father ; and so rapidly does that seed of crime fructify, 
that only five years later he foully murders that 
mother, whom he once loved with tenderness, and he 
is yet but twenty-seven when he fiddles over burning 
Rome, and lights up his palace garden with the blazing 
bodies of living Christians. 

And lovely traits grow, as do those which are ab- 
horred, although the native soil of the human heart 
is less favorable to these, and they require more care 
in their cultivation. 

Love for a good mother — grateful, tender, trustful 
love — planted in a son's heart when his mother is all 
the world to him, and he sits by her knee, having 
never known doubt of the pure and the good, nor ex- 
perienced the world's cold selfishness, is the germ of 
love to others, and of confidence in the better instincts 
of his fellows' hearts ; or it may even be the germ of 
belief in his mother's religion, — to bring forth duly in 



1 04 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

precious fruitage. Said Richard Cecil, of his coldest 
days of unbelief: ''There was one argument I could 
never get over, — the influence and life of a godly 
mother." And that one good seed retained its vital 
power through years of seeming death, even as the 
grains of wheat, enwrapped in the cerements of the 
mummy, have been said to germinate and bear fruit 
after thirty centuries in the tombs of Egypt. 

Two centuries and more ago, on the banks of the 
Isis, a seed of love for truth, and of devotion to con- 
science, and of adherence to honest dealings with 
and to peaceful measures toward all men, and of un- 
compromising fidelity to religious freedom, v/as sown 
by a Quaker preacher in the mind of a gay and pleas- 
ure-loving English youth, at that time a student in 
Oxford University. Twenty years later that youth 
was in the American wilderness, on the banks of the 
Delaware, broadcasting the fruitage of that seed ; 
and to-day our City of Brotherly Love, in its pride and 
beauty and far-reaching influence, and our mighty 
commonwealth, with its matchless record of unham- 
pered civil and religious liberty during the now com- 
pleted two centuries of its history, are but the begin- 
nings of the endless harvest of that single grain of 
good. ^ 

To-day we joy in the product of that planting by 
William Penn, when in toil and in prayer for us and 
for ours his heart-cry was : ''And thou, Philadelphia, 
the virgin settlement of this province, named before 

^ This sermon was preached on Philadelphia's Bi-Centennial celebration. 



A Seed Sermon 105 



thou wert born, — what love, what care, what service, 
and what travail has there been to bring thee forth, 
and preserve thee from such as would abuse and 
defile thee ! My soul prays to God for thee, that 
thou may'st stand in the day of trial, that thy children 
may be blessed of the Lord, and thy people saved by 
his power." ^ 

And here in the home of William Penn, the same 
law of seed-planting and harvest-bearing is still oper- 
ative, in lesser things as in larger ; and that which 
seems least at the start may show itself large in its 
results. 

The little girl, tending carefully her doll, watching 
over it in its imaginary illness, and keeping its every 
tiny article of dress in neatness and repair, is sowing 
the seeds of motherly gentleness and devotion, and 
of matronly skill and efficiency, to bear abundant 
harvest in another home circle in the coming years. 
And the child in the Sunday-school, encouraged to 
deny itself some craved luxury to aid a missionary in 
the home or foreign field, or the group of little folks 
planning ways and means of securing help to a needy 
family, will be likely to exhibit the fruit of such seed- 
sowing in an enlarged interest in benevolent opera- 
tions of every kind for God's glory and man's welfare 
when childhood's day are over. 

" The secret is deeper than we can read, — 
But we gather the grain if we sow the seed." ^ 

*' Whatsoever a man soweth, t/iat shall he also reap." 

1 William Penn, 1684. ^ Lucy Larcum. 



io6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

It shall bring forth fruit abundantly, '' some thirty- 
fold, some sixty, and some a hundred " (Mark 4 : 20). 

Think of this, you who oversee the young, — parent, 
teacher, friend, — in its bearings on the future of those 
given into your charge ! 

When you note in them the beginnings of evil, — 
indolence, irresolution, selfishness, ill-nature, disobedi- 
ence, impurity, irreverence, sinful indulgence of any 
kind, — do not look upon these things as faults seen 
already at their worst, and which must be accepted as 
the inevitable flaws and failures of poor human na- 
ture ; but realize that they are poisonous germs, with 
life and propagative power, to multiply and increase 
after their kinds, to gain steadily in strength and 
reach, to take a new hold in new places daily, even 
as the branches of the banyan dip to earth to root 
themselves anew, and thus to cause the outstretching 
limbs to cover and contain the whole plain, in the 
centre of which the tree stood solitary and compact 
at first 

Unless you would welcome the harvest from these 
seeds of evil, you should spare no pains and spurn no 
help in the time of seed-sowing. Do not think that 
** boys must be boys," and that *' girls must be girls," 
in the sense that every boy must be permitted to have 
the ways of bad boys, or that every girl must be tol- 
erated in the follies of thoughtless and ill-trained 
girls. Nor count it probable that a crop of evil habits 
will run themselves out of a young person's heart- 
soil. "Wild oats " and ''Canada thistles " never run 



A Seed Sermon 107 



out. Everything in nature tends to their nurture and 
development. 

Whether you desire the harvest or not, your chil- 
dren are sowing for one. 

" Ah ! some are sowing the seeds of pain, 
Of late remorse, and a maddened brain ; 
And the stars shall fall, and the sun shall wane. 
Ere they root the weeds from their soil again. 
Dark will the harvest be J " 

And when you, young man or young woman, — or 
man or woman of any age, — are tempted to depart 
from the right in the smallest matter, or to begin a 
course you would dislike as a fixed habit, understand 
that in such departure or such beginning a seed is 
planted which will many-fold itself, and then must be 
reaped. 

You may spend only a trifle more than you earn ; 
may waste only a few hours daily in idling ; may de- 
fraud only a railroad company or other rich corpora- 
tion, and that only in a very small amount ; may be 
dishonest or untruthful in only one of a hundred petty 
ways which the world winks at ; may violate the law 
of purity only in what seems hardly worth noting ; 
may deceive or wrong only a child ; may break only 
the least of God's commandments, and teach men so, — 
and in all this you may give no occasion for public 
scandal. Can any great harm come from this ? Ah ! 
my friend, *' Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : 
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 

''That shall he also reap ! " Mark that, will you ? 



1 08 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Every man must reap his own crop. Not only shall 
the seed grow and multiply, but the fruit shall be 
gathered by him who planted the seed. ''Who plant- 
eth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? " 
(i Cor. 9 : 7.) *' The recompense of a man's hands 
shall be rendered unto Jiim'' (Prov. 12 : 14). ''To 
him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward " 
(Prov. 11:18). And "He that soweth iniquity shall 
reap vanity" (Prov. 22 : 8). 

The seed once sown, and the crop follows. Regret 
for the sowing will not avert the necessity of reaping. 
When the tares are rooted, they will grow with the 
wheat "until the harvest" (Matt. 13 : 30). Not until 
those tares have been gathered in, can they be burned 
from sight forever. 

Esau, having profanely bartered his high birthright 
for a mess of pottage, afterward, when he bewailed 
his folly, and would fain have secured a reversal of 
the consequences, "found no place of repentance," — 
no place of such repentance as would restore him his 
lost possession, — " though he sought it carefully with 
tears " (Heb. 12:17). He had sown. He must reap. 

David was bitterly sorrowful over his double crime 
against Uriah; but the sword he had taken to cut off 
a trusting and devoted follower never departed from 
his house while he lived. He was a man of blood 
and a sufferer from treachery thenceforward until his 
death (2 Sam. 12:9-13). The crop he sowed for 
must be reaped, even though its sowing was repented 
of and forgiven. 



A Seed Sermon 1 09 



So always. Forgiven sins have their earthly fruit- 
age. Regeneration does not give a man a new eye, 
or a new arm, if he has lost one through some early 
trangression. Nor does it restore to him the primitive 
delicacy of tastes he has perverted, and the pristine 
vigor of moral senses he has blunted. 

Says quaint and godly old Thomas Fuller : *' Lord, 
how come wicked thoughts to perplex me in my 
prayers, when I desire and endeavor only to attend 
thy service? Now, I perceive the cause thereof; at 
other times I have willingly entertained them, and 
now they entertain themselves against my will. I 
acknowledge thy justice, that what formerly I have 
invited, now I cannot expel. 

*' Give me, hereafter, always to bolt out such ill- 
guests. The best way to be rid of such thoughts in 
my prayers, is not to receive them out of my prayers." 
Or, in other words, the better way to avoid such reap- 
ing is to change the style of sowing. 

Lord, deliver us from tares and their accursed crop ! 
Lord, keep us from sowing that which we wish not to 
reap ! The daily struggles of some of God's dear chil- 
dren with habits of thought and modes of speech and 
impulses of action, fastened on them in days of bit- 
terly-repented misdoing, can never be conceived by 
those who were spared the sorry sowing of seeds of 
flesh and folly. 

Nor does the harvest of character end with the life 
that now is. There is no seed-sowing beyond the 
grave, but the sheaves of earth's fields are finally 



no Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

stored in the garners of eternity. *' For we must all 
appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every 
one may receive the things done in his body, accord- 
ing to that he hath done [in the seed-sowing line], 
whether it be good or bad " (2 Cor. 5 : 10). 

Follow men, if you will, down through their earthly 
lives, and note the signs of the coming harvest as 
they approach eternity's verge, if you would see 
whether or not their experiences tend, invariably, to 
the confirmation of this explicit and unqualified dec- 
laration of the word of God. 

Nothing is reaped in eternity but was sowed for 
in time. And a dying man is no more likely than 
a man in full health to begin good seed-sowing. If 
the voice of God were to sound audibly in this house 
this evening, saying, " In one hour from now, every 
soul here must stand at my Judgment Bar," I believe 
that few if any of you who are nov/ unprepared for 
eternity would be ready at the hour's close. You 
would doubtless pray for a good harvest ; but would 
you plant for it? If you think you would do good 
planting then, why not now ? 

I have stood by very many dying men, my friends, 
— not merely men dying of disease, so that their hold 
on life was relaxed almost imperceptibly, but in my 
army chaplaincy I stood by men dropping out of 
full health with mortal wounds, or men brought in 
unabated vigor to kneel by their open graves, face to 
face with their military executioners, — but I never yet 
saw in any dying man's experience any seeming con- 



A Seed Sermon 1 1 1 



tradiction of God's law of germ and growth and 
product in the soul. 

Ten times I have been with men going out to be 
shot or hanged for crime. Surely if any external 
circumstances could change a man's character, it 
would be when the hour of his death was fixed, and 
a limited season was given him to prepare for eter- 
nity. If ever he would show love for a better crop 
than that of his planting, it would be in such an 
emergency. But I have found men at a time like 
this giving plainest evidence of the harvest for which 
they had long been sowing. 

Serious they all were, and ready to look the future 
in the face. Some were in an agony of remorse, and 
cried out in bitterness of soul at the thought of what 
was before them. But, mark you, praying against a 
harvest is not in itself planting for one. Some who 
tried to devote themselves to preparations for eternity, 
showed, in spite of their best efforts, more real inter- 
est in what they were to eat and drink at their last 
meal on earth than in the whole plan of salvation. 
They could even bring themselves to believe — nov/ 
that die they must — that without any new seed-sowing 
they would have another harvest than the one for 
which they had so long been making ready. They 
could deceive themselves, but God was not mocked ; 
that which they had sown, they were now to reap. 

My first experience with a man who was to be 
hanged impressed this truth on me. It was a soldier 
who had killed a comrade in cold blood. On the day 



112 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of his execution I was with him in the provost-m.ar- 
shal's quarters in a Virginia camp, seeking to prepare 
him for death. He was to start out for the gallows at 
two o'clock. At about twelve a soldier of his com- 
pany brought him his noon rations for the day. As 
the man entered the tent with the food, I was kneel- 
ing in prayer with the condemned man. At the in- 
terruption he looked up, and, seeing the food, he was 
at once interested. Enjoyment in prayer he had not 
sown for, but a love of eating and drinking he had 
been sowing for all his life. Running his eye over 
the things brought in, he said, in a tone of disap- 
pointment : 

''Can't I have some cheese? I had some cheese 
yesterday." 

His comrade, seemingly shocked at this interest in 
such a matter on the verge of eternity, replied : 

*' I suppose I can get you some cheese," and he 
hurried off after it. When it was brought, the con- 
demned man took the cheese and the pork and the 
bread, and his tin cup of coffee, and in his last hours 
on earth he seemed to have as much interest in this 
latest reaping of his life-harvest as ever before. 
When every morsel of his rations was eaten he wiped 
the pork grease from his lips with his coat sleeve, and 
then turned to me and said : 

** Now I'm ready for you. Chaplain, to pray with 
me again." 

Yet, when the guard came to escort him to the 
gallows, he added in evident sincerity : 



A Seed Sermon 1 1 3 

" I wish they'd give me a swig o' whisky, to brace 
me before they trice me up." 

Could there be any doubt as to what that man had 
sowed, and of which he was now to reap the harvest ? 
" Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 

This truth of our text, my friends, is God's truth, 
and a terrible truth it is to the sinner ! What hope is 
there in it — or out of it — to you and to me ? We 
have done some sorry seed-sowing in our day. Must 
we reap the harvest accordingly ? Who, then, can be 
saved ? 

Ah ! there is an earthly seed-sowing that brings a 
heavenly harvest. Good seed — seeds of love and 
obedience and trust — planted in the blood-moistened 
earth at the foot of the cross can start a vine which 
shall twine its tendrils around that cross, and find its 
way up and up, until it reaches through the clouds, 
to bear precious fruit before the Throne eternally. 

The choice is between that seed-sowing and all 
others. *' He that soweth to his flesh " — he whose 
deeds of good and ill are of the flesh and for the 
flesh, limited in their plan to himself and to his fel- 
lows and to the life that now is — ''shall of the flesh 
reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit" — 
whose heart-soil is softened and opened and sown by 
the Holy Spirit— ''shall of the Spirit" — by the Holy 
Spirit's power — "reap life everlasting" (Gal. 6 : 8). 

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 



114 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

perance : against such there is no law" (Gal. 5 : 
22, 23), and to such there is no end, no death. 
He who brings to the final harvest the fruits of the 
Spirit, by faith, hsis thenceforward freedom from the 
tares and weeds which grew with the good fruit until 
that harvest. 

" Sower Divine ! 

Sow the good seed in me ; 

Seed for eternity. 

'Tis a rough, barren soil, 

Yet, by thy care and toil. 

Make it a fruitful field, 

An hundredfold to yield. 
Sower Divine, 
Plough up this heart of mine ! "* 

1 Horatius Bonar. 



CHARACTER SURELY DISCLOSED 



VI 

CHARACTER SURELY DISCLOSED 

After my regiment came back from Appomattox 
Court House at the collapse of the Confederacy, 
we were for several months stationed a short distance 
above Richmond, engaged in duties incident to the 
close of the long war. . And then there were trying 
phases of army life. Of course, it was more difficult 
to keep up a high standard of zeal or morals or cour- 
age among either officers or men. The moral stand- 
ard is generally higher among soldiers in active 
service than among civilians in the community from 
which the soldiers have come ; but when the neces- 
sity for active service ceases among soldiers, it is a 
different matter. 

With an inevitable letting down of the strictest dis- 
cipline inside the camp, there was an absence of such 
pressure from enemies outside as existed in war-time, 
and outside temptations to officers and men were 
greatly increased. In consequence the breaches of 
morality multiplied. Yet nominally there was the 
same strictness as to presences and absences, and as 
to keeping within specified bounds, and as to the 
necessity of having permission to leave camp at any 

117 



1 1 8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

time, as when we were before the enemy. The in- 
creasing demoralization was a cause of regret to me, 
and I knew it was my duty to do what I could to 
check it, and to change the tone and current in the 
regiment. 

I found that not unnaturally in our camp, as else- 
where, it was generally felt to be more of a mistake 
to be found out in a breach of discipHne or any mis- 
demeanor, than to do a similar wrong that was con- 
cealed. Therefore, among other sermons at that time, 
I preached one on the sure uncovering of character, 
or the certainty of wrong-doing being ultimately 
found out. Among incidental illustrations of my 
theme I gave this : 

"An officer may slip unobserved through the guard- 
line in the darkness of a rainy evening, and go into 
town for a 'good time.' When his 'good time' is 
over for the night, he may, in coming back, slip again 
through the guard-line and get into his tent without 
being seen. As he then sinks into his late and heavy 
slumber, he may congratulate himself on having done 
all this without any one in camp knowing about it. 
But when the sergeant of the guard comes to his tent 
the middle of the next forenoon with a message, and 
finds that officer sound asleep on the outside of his 
bed with his muddy boots on, the whole company 
may soon be talking about his performances, which 
he congratulated himself had been done so slyly." 

As other possibilities in this line were given in that 
sermon by way of wholly hypothetical illustration, it 



Character Surely Disclosed 119 

became a subject of not a little discussion in the camp, 
among officers and men, which I think was not wholly 
unprofitable. And this subject of the sure uncover- 
ing of character, as treated from the same text, became 
one of my life treasures and means of usefulness. I 
re -wrote sermons on that theme, again and again, and 
preached them in various parts of the country ; and I 
had evidence that God blessed that preaching to the 
good of souls. 

In visiting a well-known family-school in New Eng- 
land, I preached, in the church which the boys of that 
school attended, this sermon as newly adapted in its 
illustrations and warnings to hearers of that sort. 
Among those boys was one of exceptional ability and 
of a family of national prominence. He had given 
his parents and teachers much concern by his course, 
and there was at that time danger of his being dis- 
missed from that school on account of his undesirable 
influence over other boys, although he had not yet 
been informed of that fact. He was so influenced by 
that sermon that he desired to have a conversation 
with me on the subject, and of course I was glad to 
talk with him. 

As we talked, he said frankly : " It's the first time I 
was ever really frightened about myself I have 
always counted on covering my tracks, and not being 
found out in my misdoings. But you've shown me 
that I've got, in the long run, to be known as I am. 
Now I Avant to be a different man." That was a good 
starting-point for any boy. I tried to help him. He 



1 20 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

was soon on another path. He became an earnest 
and useful clergyman. When, some years after this, 
I heard him preach in a prominent pulpit in the city 
where I then lived, I was glad to remember that long- 
ago talk with him. At the close of the service at 
which he preached, he greeted me heartily, and said 
warmly that it was because of my sermon which so 
took hold of him, that he was in the ministry. 

Perhaps of no sermon that I ever preached have I 
had so many evidences of its hold on hearers as this 
one, on the sure uncovering of character. And I 
have had reason to be grateful that in our camp before 
Richmond, in the spring of 1865, I was moved to 
preach on the subject. 



KNOWN AS WE REALLY ARE 

Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees^ which is 
hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not 
be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known (Luke 
12 : I, 2). 

The leaven is that within the mass which puffs it 
up, and gives it show of bulk beyond its substance. 
Leaven acts only by fermentation, — adding nothing 
to the mass, but merely swelling it. The working of 
leaven is often more effective than its material is 
choice. It may be bitter hops, or sour dough, which 
lighten and expand the most comely and attractive 
loaf. 

Hence the fitness of our Saviour's figure in the 
text. The Pharisees had the fairest exterior of all 
the Jewish sects. Closely attentive to religious cere- 
monials, and conspicuous in prayer and almsgiving, 
they claimed confidently — and with an appearance of 
reason — a superiority to their co-rehgionists. Yet 
they made a show of godliness not justified by their 
spiritual life. 

And when Jesus of Nazareth — giving prominence, 
as always, to the making clean of the inner rather 
than the outer man — had, on a certain occasion, disre- 

121 



12 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

garded one of their traditional washings, he found his 
personal rectitude called in question by a Pharisee. 

It was then, " when there were gathered together 
an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that 
they trode one upon another," — Pharisees and the 
common herd commingled, — that our Lord " began 
to say unto his disciples first of all. Beware ye of the 
leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." As 
though he would say, " These fair-favored, open- 
mouthed, self-asserting religionists, with their swell- 
ing words of proud profession, are inflated with an 
element I would have you shun. Whatever ex- 
terior you may present to the world, see to it that 
your reputation is otherwise gained than by such 
assumptions as distend their being." " Beware ye of 
the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." 

And when Jesus stigmatized the inner life of the 
Pharisees as " hypocrisy," he gave to it the most 
obnoxious of all names ; for there is no other charge 
from the reproach of which men shrink like hypocrisy. 
It would be easier, in one of our great prison-houses, 
to find five confessing murderers than to find one 
avowed hypocrite. " I know that I am bad ; but 
I'm not a hypocrite ! " is the cry of the vilest trans- 
gressor. 

Yet hypocrisy is a very common sin, — more com- 
mon than murder, or than even theft or bald lying. 
There have been more hypocrites preaching and hear- 
ing the gospel to-day than of any other class of evil- 
doers. And if this roof above us covers no hypocrite 



Character Sicrely Disclosed 123 

this evening, it is above a very rare assemblage of 
miscellaneous church-goers. 

What is hypocrisy ? It is " a feigning to be what 
one is not," " a concealment of one's real character 
or motives." Every man who thus feigns, or thus 
conceals, is a hypocrite. A man may, it is true, feign 
other than his real emotions, or conceal many of his 
actions, without hypocrisy ; for he has a right to the 
privacies of his personal and family and business life 
— within due bounds ; and he is under no obligation 
to show at all times how he feels, or to tell to others 
what he has been doing. But if he assumes a charac- 
ter which is not his own, or feigns to be another kind 
of man than he is, or conceals his prevailing motives 
of conduct, he is a hypocrite. 

Any minister who preaches as if he were God's 
messenger, and lives like a servant of Satan, is a hypo- 
crite. So, also, is any church-member whose daily 
walk is a libel on his, or her, religious professions. 
Thus much all will admit. But hypocrisy is not 
wholly among ministers and church-members, — per- 
haps not chiefly there. There is much of hypocrisy 
out of the church, among men who have never called 
themselves Christians, or claimed to be religiously 
disposed. 

The law of morals is the same for the man of the 
world as for the church-member ; so, also, is the law 
of honor and of true manliness. He who calls him- 
self a moral man while he is intemperate, or dishon- 
est, or untruthful, or impure, is as surely hypocritical 



1 24 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

— in feigning a character he does not possess — as is a 
minister who, in his pulpit, advocates total abstinence, 
and drinks wine or whisky in his study. He who 
claims to be a man of honor and of manliness, yet de- 
liberately overreaches a neighbor, defrauds the gov- 
ernment, is untrue to a woman, or overbearing toward 
a child, is no less a hypocrite than is a church-mem- 
ber who is prominent alike in the prayer-meeting and 
in the gambling-house. 

And there are irreligious steady church-goers who 
are hypocrites, — who are hypocrites in claiming that 
they are not hypocritical. They admit that Jesus 
Christ is the only Saviour of sinners, and that he calls 
on them to come to him in penitence and faith, and 
confess him before men as their Saviour. Yet they 
persistently refuse to do as he desires them to ; and, 
while thus refusing, they pride themselves on their 
freedom from inconsistency, because, as they say, they 
make no professions which they do not live up to. 
Their every breath away from Christ, and out of the 
Christian fold, is utterly inconsistent with their ad- 
mitted convictions of duty ; yet they ask on this very 
account to be reckoned sincere and consistent well- 
doers. What more clearly-defined and flagrant 
hypocricy than theirs is possible ? 

Just here, let me say that hypocrites are not always 
the worst of men ; that hypocrisy is not in itself as 
bad as much of the evil purposes and shortcomings 
and wrong-doing which it is made to cover, albeit it is 
so generally abhorred. If a man lacks a good char- 



Character Surely Disclosed 125 

acter, it is rather in his favor that he wants people to 
think he has one. " It is a good sign in a man to be 
capable of being ashamed," says a Talmudic proverb. 
He has fallen lowest in depravity who is willing to be 
known as vile. 

Hypocrisy is, I say, commonly less culpable than 
barefaced, defiant rascality ; yet, understand me, 
hypocrisy is never to be viewed with favor or toler- 
ance. The injunction of our Lord, in the text, is 
mandatory on all ; on us now as on his disciples of 
old, — " Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, 
which is hypocrisy" ! See to it that that which gives 
you reputation, in church or in community, is not the 
Pharisees' leaven. 

And why beware of hypocrisy ? Why shun it with 
loathing ? First, of course, because it is sinful. The 
greatest objection to any vice is its sinfulness. This 
is too obvious to justify discussion. But Jesus adds 
another reason — a secondary yet a weighty one — for 
recoiling from this iniquity, in his assertion that hypoc- 
risy practically amounts to but Httle ; that its exist- 
ence will surely be disclosed. The leaven will work 
its process of fermentation only for a time, — then 
comes the collapse, leaving only a contemptible resid- 
uum. " For there is nothing covered, that shall not 
be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known. 
Therefore, whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness 
shall be heard in the light ; and that which ye have 
spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon 
the housetops." 



126 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Ah ! if men but believed this divine utterance, — if 
they realized it in all its far-reaching significance, — 
would there not be less of hypocritical pretension in 
the world, and less of evil being and doing to be cov- 
ered up ? If when men had sinned, their eyes could 
be opened to a sense of their characters standing 
naked before the world, would they not hide them- 
selves "amongst the trees of the garden" until they 
could obtain fig-leaves to make themselves aprons ? 

If the foul-mouthed or false-speaking man, or boy, 
knew that his every impure or profane word would 
echo in the ears of mother, wife, or sister ; or that 
his every untruth would be sounded out as a lie 
among all whose confidence he desired, — think you 
not he would strive to keep the door of his lips ? If 
every evil act or unholy thought were sure to be 
written on the forehead, apparent to every passer, 
would not the prayer of many go up, " Cleanse thou 
me from secret faults" (Psa. 19: 12), and "Let the 
words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, 
be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord " ? (Psa. 19 : 14.) 

If, indeed, all hypocrites were convinced that the 
cloaks they now fold around their characters so grace- 
fully must be torn away, that the veils which now 
conceal their moral features must be uplifted, that 
the records of motive which no eye but their own has 
ever seen, must be exposed to the gaze of all, — would 
they not stand appalled, and be compelled to long earn- 
estly for a better character than that formed by the 
Pharisees' leaven, with its rapidly effervescing power ? 



Character Surely Disclosed 127 

Yes ! The blessed Jesus " knew what was in man," 
— knew his fears and desires, knew what would in- 
fluence and impress him; and because of the potency 
of such a truth with every man accepting it, our 
Saviour uttered the startling declaration of our text, — 
a declaration alarming to any person who would fain 
conceal his character from his fellows, but one of 
which the truth is reaffirmed continually, to every in- 
telligent observer of the course of nature and the 
dealings of Providence, — ** There is nothing covered, 
that shall not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall not 
be known." 

Let us look, for a few minutes, at some of the cor- 
roboratory evidences of the truth of this declaration. 

J. The tendency of all nature is to openness, not to 
concealment ; to uncovering, not to hiding. 

Cut a single gash, scarcely perceptible to-day, in 
the trunk of a vigorously growing sapling, and that 
gash will grow wider as the tree grows larger ; and 
years hence the scar will be more prominent than in 
the hour it was made. Take every stone from the 
surface of a newly-plowed field, and harrow over 
the upturned earth until all is level and fair, — then 
leave it to itself for a single year. Will that field pre- 
sent the same unbroken surface when twelve months 
have gone ? Or, will the silent workings of nature 
have thrown up from below the pebbles and boulders 
that can be covered only for a season ? 

The ocean is, with its every tide-flow, washing from 



128 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

its depths some of its long-hid treasures, and reveal- 
ing along the beach the shells 'and weed and coral 
and fragments of wreck that were hidden for only a 
passing time. The very mountains and hills are 
crumbling away; and again the valleys they cover are 
being laid bare as before. Cities buried under the 
volcanic flow of one age are exposed in the next. 
One earthquake opens what another had concealed. 
Each season discloses some secret of one that went 
before. " I will overturn, overturn, overturn " (Ezek. 
21 : 27), says nature doing God's work, in all its 
changing moods ; and the falling rain, the rushing 
wind, and the roaring surf, reiterate the divine assev- 
eration, " There is nothing covered, that shall not be 
revealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known." 

God controls in nature all his creations, and con- 
forms them to his eternal purpose of their self-dis- 
closure. It is a primal truth that Campbell puts into 
the mouth of his wizard : 

" Lochiel ! Lochiel ! beware of the day ! 
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal ; 
But man can not cover what God would reveal." 

Man himself is so formed that the very thoughts of 
his heart take quick shape in the expression of his 
face, the movements of his body, and the tones of 
his voice. The skilled anatomist will tell with unerr- 
ing accuracy just which facial muscles are brought in 
play by each varying emotion. It requires, moreover, 
no scientific knowledge to detect the outward signs of 
anger, sorrow, or delight ; and even an infant knows 



Character Surely Disclosed 129 

the difference between a mother's smile and a mother's 
frown. All of us perceive in some faces which we 
meet, the workings below of purity and truthfulness 
and faith and kindness of heart and nobleness of soul, 
or of deceitfulness and lust and discontent and sor- 
did selfishness; and we judge the disclosed charac- 
ters accordingly. 

A certain degree of self-control and self-conceal- 
ment is, to be sure, acquired by resolute purpose and 
continued practice ; but few persons are so far ad- 
vanced in artful diplomacy as to always employ their 
words and acts in the Talleyrandic use of concealing 
one's ideas. It was said of so skilled a politician as 
Sir Robert Peel, that the manner in which he threw 
open the collar of his coat on entering Parliament of 
an evening showed which way the ministerial wind 
was blowing. 

So the most wary will be off their guard sometimes, 
telling tales of their inner being and feeling by chance 
remarks or pointed questions ; by a start, a shudder, 
a smile, or a shoulder-shrug ; by an answer of thought- 
less ill-nature or an act of impulsive meanness ; or on 
the other hand by overflowing words of abounding 
kindliness and far-reaching charity. It is God's truth, 
and it is God's plan, that "A good man out of the 
good treasure of the heart bring eth forth good things : 
and an evil man out of the evil treasure bring eth forth 
evil things" (Matt. 12 : 35). In the long run a man 
can not do otherwise than show out his real self. 

Men even ache to tell the truth concerning them- 



1 30 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

selves, and evil-doers who have a reputation beyond 
their deserts are, from time to time, confessing their 
faults one to another, — not so much in obedience to 
the apostoHc injunction as in accordance with the 
divinely-ordered promptings of their natures. They 
can not help it. The truth must out. 

Hood's " Eugene Aram " gave voice to the vain cry 
of many a longing hypocrite, as he shut the book he 
held, and 

" Strained the dusky covers close, 
And fixed the brazen hasp : — 
' O God ! could I so close my mind, 
And clasp it with a clasp.' " 

And he represented the whole legion of heart-burst- 
ing hypocrites, when he sat down with the school- 
boys, and, under the guise of a dream, told the story 
of his crime, and of his failures to cover effectually 
the body of his murdered victim. 

" I knew my secret then was one 

The earth refused to keep — 
Or land or sea, though he should be 

Ten thousand fathoms deep. 
So wills the fierce avenging sprite, 

Till blood for blood atones ! 
Aye, though he's buried in a cave, 

And trodden down with stones. 
And years have rotted off his flesh — 

The world shall see his bones." 

" For there is nothing covered, that shall not be re^ 
vealed ; neither hid, that shall not be known." 



Character Surely Disclosed 131 

Another verification of our text is this : 

2. It is a habit of nature to record its changes ; to 
self -register its history and progress. 

The geologic strata of the earth's substance tell 
plainly the order of creation, and enable the savant 
to describe to us the successive formations of the 
pre-Adamite world. In its mineral, its vegetable, 
and its animal productions, each age has made its 
mark, told its story, and left its record for all coming 
time. 

The opened mountain-side reveals its consecutive 
layers piled one above another, no subsequent accum- 
ulations having removed, however they have covered, 
what went before. The concentric grain rings of the 
ancient tree trunk show just how many summers and 
winters have passed since the little acorn broke the 
surface of the covering soil. And the tiniest moth 
floating in the sunlight bears evidence on its wings, 
to the observing naturalist, of the already spent hours 
of its brief existence. 

So of man : not only his age, but his career, is 
written on his outer being. That which he has 
passed through is noted ; that which he has done is 
registered. Disease never leaves the human body 
just as it found it, nor does sorrow or sin. He who 
has known real bitterness of soul, he who has been 
much in imminent peril, he who has indulged in vice, 
he who has made a hard struggle with temptation, — 
whether the issue to him was victory or defeat, — gives 



132 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

testimony of his experiences in both feature and ex- 
pression. 

Tennyson says of Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 

" The great and guilty love lie bore the Queen, 
In battle with the love he bore his lord, 
Had mar'd his face, and marked it ere his time." 

A similar process of character-recording goes on in 
every human countenance. Simple-hearted King 
Duncan may indeed declare 

" There's no art 
To find the mind's construction in the face," 

but keen-eyed Lady Macbeth knows better than this, 
and her warning is to her liege, as his plans of treach- 
ery and murder progress, 

" Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 
May read strange matters." 

We are even told by some medical writers, con- 
cerning this registering power of the emotions, that 
each controlling thought and purpose " impresses on 
the body some indelible mark," and a long continu- 
ance of similar thoughts and feelings makes an im- 
print which is clearly perceptible. This being so, it 
is plain that no man can deliberately shirk a duty or 
do a wrong without having written on his counte- 
nance some mark which tends to disclose the story 
of his failure or transgression, and which, when 
deepened and multiplied, may be observed by those 
who are quick at character-judging. 

" Understanding human nature," as we employ the 



Charactei'' Surely Disclosed 133 

phrase, involves a familiarity with the sure cipher in 
which the record of the inner life is written on the 
outer man. Some are better scholars than others in 
this language, but all know more or less of it, — more 
usually than those on whom it is written suppose. 

We have all met faces which inspired us on the in- 
stant with confidence or with distrust. We felt sure, 
at the start, of the characters they indicated. One 
glimpse was sufficient. We did not ask to watch the 
persons bearing those faces, to learn of them more 
surely by their daily conduct for weeks or months 
together. The story of their conduct for years was 
before us at a glance. We knew what it must have 
been, and what it would continue to be. 

And again we have seen faces change — handsome 
faces lose their beauty, or plain faces glow with new 
loveliness — through a disclosure and development of 
character. We have seen faces grow grandly beauti- 
ful under the pressure of new responsibility, at home 
or in the army. We have seen other faces shine as 
the face of an angel, in the hour of bereavement and 
sorrow, — even as the porcelain shade of a study lamp 
shows for the first time its real attractiveness when 
the darkness shuts in about it, and the light from 
within it gleams through, to illuminate and make dis- 
tinct the lovely picture it presents. 

Again, we have noted with sadness the look of 
purity, of truthfulness, of reverence, of tenderness, pass 
away from the countenance of one we had admired. 
Or we have watched with interest the deepening lines 



134 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of manly power in the face of one who battled bravely 
in his contest with some besetting sin, or some soul- 
racking temptation, until his heroic form seemed 
hung all over with medals of victory. 

As we have observed these disclosed evidences of 
progress in character, — for better or for worse, — we 
have had fresh occasion to realize that in man's being 
— as in every other sphere of nature — there is a book 
of God's remerhbrance, preserving for all time the 
story of each movement and change, and that it is 
God's will concerning the records of this book that 
" there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed ; 
neither hid, that shall not be known." 

There is one more truth in corroboration of our 
text which ought not to be overlooked. 

J. The tireless curiosity of man is an agency for 
the uncovering of that which craves concealment. 

Every man is more or less interested in what con- 
cerns his fellows, and he desires to understand the 
characters of those with whom he is brought into 
association. He observes, often unintentionally, little 
things which go to show their idiosyncrasies, and 
from each and all of these he draws his inferences and 
derives his impressions. And, in conversation with 
each other, men compare opinions of those they have 
separately observed. One has noted one thing ; 
another, another. The information of all becomes 
common stock, and gradually an average and pretty 



Character Surely Disclosed 135 

accurate estimate is arrived at of the characters under 
consideration. 

He who is skilful enough as a hypocrite to deceive 
any single observer, proves no match for the com- 
bined intelligence of the community when its gaze, 
from any cause, centers on him. He can easily show 
one side of his character to one man ; but he can not 
be sure of showing only that side to all of a hundred 
men who are looking at him from different points of 
observation. 

In the process of what is known as " photo-sculp- 
ture," the sitter finds himself in the center of an octag- 
onal chamber, with cameras pointed at him from every 
side, each taking a picture of him with its own peculiar 
view. When, afterwards, the various operators bring 
together their distinct "impressions" of the sitter, he 
is shown as he appeared from before, from behind, 
from this side, from that side, and from yet other 
directions. Then it is easy enough to put him in 
plaster for permanent exhibition. Every man is in 
such a chamber as that, having these various corre- 
sponding impressions made of him, a great deal 
oftener than he thinks for. 

Let a man be nominated for political office, and see 
if any weak spot in his character has been overlooked 
by members of the opposite party ! Or let a man be 
charged with crime and brought to trial, — how aston- 
ished he is to find that he was observed so closely 
in his every act at the time in question, by those 
whom he neither knew nor saw. One and another 



136 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

can show what streets he passed, what purchases he 
made, and how he looked and bore himself while yet 
unsuspected of crime, — while indeed he was no more 
observed than his fellows ; for if another man had 
been charged with the same misdeed, another set of 
men would have testified of him with like fideHty of 
detail. 

It is in enforcement of this general truth that Burns 
gives reminder : 

" If there's a hole in a' your coats, 
I rede ye tent it ; 
A chiel's amang ye takin' notes, 
And, faith, he'll prent it." 

A young man, or an older one, may think himself 
quite out of familiar notice in the crowd of a strange 
city, — or in the back street of a town where he lives, — 
when really at least one sharp eye watches intelli- 
gently his every movement, or one keen ear catches 
the sound of his well-known voice ; and his conduct 
there will be quickly reported in the circle of his 
home friends, although he may not know of this dis- 
closure for months, or years — if ever. 

Is it not in view of this certainty of the exposure 
of evil, through unsuspected reporters everywhere at 
hand, that the inspired Preacher sounds the warning 
cry, "Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; 
and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber : for a bird 
of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath 
wings shall tell the matter " ? (Eccl. 10 : 20.) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, like many another of the 



Character Sicrely Disclosed 137 

world's philosophers, merely paraphrases a Scripture 
passage to express what is called one of his original 
thoughts, when he declares : " A man passes for 
what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concern- 
ing other people's estimate of us, and all fear of re- 
maining unknown is not less so. . . . The world is full 
of judgment days, and into every assembly that a 
man enters, in every action that he attempts, he is 
gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys that 
whoop and run in each yard and square, a newcomer 
is well and accurately weighed in the course of a few 
days, and stamped with his right measure, as if he 
had undergone a formal trial of his strength." 

What is this but an expansion — or an illustration — 
of our text ? " Beware ye of the leaven of the Phar- 
isees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing cov- 
ered, that shall not be revealed ; neither hid, that shall 
not be known." 

My friends, I beg of you, think of these things ! 
This subject has its practical bearings on the lives of 
all of you. You are all better known, — estimated 
more nearly at your true value, — and your course is 
more clearly watched and widely reported, than most 
of you have supposed. There are very few persons 
who would not be surprised if they should hear their 
neighbors talk of them, — surprised at the particularity 
with which their characters are sketched, and their 
conduct is commented on. You are no exception to 
the general rule on this point. 



138 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Have you done anything of late which you would 
be ashamed to let the world know, because of its in- 
consistency with a character you lay claim to ? If 
you have, it is doubtless more than suspected by 
others. Your ostrich body may have been seen, 
while your eyes were buried in the bush. Your tell- 
tale face may have revealed the story when you 
thought it covered forever. Your cherished secret is, 
perhaps, already being whispered into the ears of a 
constantly-widening circle of listeners. Its full dis- 
closure, to your shame, may be just at hand. It is 
often thus. A gathered cloud of public censure or 
contempt is over many a head that stands erect in 
pride of conscious safety ; and only the lightning-rod 
of a special accusation is needed to cause it to pour 
its stormy contents on the victim below. 

At all events, whatever you have been or have 
done hitherto, you ought to leave this house to-day 
resolved, in the strength which God gives to his chil- 
dren. who ask believingly, that you will henceforth be 
and do that — and that only — which you would be 
willing to have the reputation of, everywhere and 
always. Your reputation, mark you, is what people 
think you are. Your character is what you really 
are. In the long run, the only sure basis of a good 
reputation is a good character. You are not likely 
to have permanently any better name — or any worse — 
than you deserve. 

If you would be counted generous, give liberally — 
not adroitly. If you wish to be called pure, shun 



Character Surely Disclosed 139 

evil desires and indulgings — rather than waste breath 
in growls over gossiping neighbors. If you seek 
credit as a consistent Christian, do justly, love mercy, 
and walk humbly with your God, — not expecting to 
win that name by profession, nor to secure it by de- 
mand. 

But, you may say, there are persons whose charac- 
ters are not disclosed. It may even be a cause of 
gladness that yoit are not shown to others in your 
true light. Possibly you flatter yourselves that in 
your case, at least, there is something covered that 
shall not be revealed ; something hid that shall not 
be known. Ah ! my friends, '' the end is not yet " 
(Matt. 24 : 6). The disclosure may, in one case or 
another, be long delayed ; but it shall come at the 
last. '' The wolf must die in his own skin," says 
quaint George Herbert. 

If indeed there be no full revelation of your char- 
acter until the close of your present life, it shall be 
made beyond : " For we must all appear before the 
judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive 
the things done in his body, according to that he hath 
done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 5 : 10). 

" Ah ! what trembling then, what quailing, 
When shall come the Judge unfailing, 
Every human life unveiling." 

No cloak there ! What a man " hath done," not 
what others suppose him to have done. As he has 
been, not as he has claimed to be. 



1 40 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" The volume open'd ! open'd every heart ! 
A sunbeam pointing out each secret thought ! " 

Then — then, if never before — every eye shall see, 
and every ear shall hear, and every mind shall know, 
and every heart shall feel — in all the universe of God 
— that " there is nothing covered, that shall not be re- 
vealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." 



MY CHAPLAINCY AMONG STUDENTS 



VII 
MY CHAPLAINCY AMONG STUDENTS 

As I have already mentioned, my preaching after 
my return from the war was practically a result of 
and was largely shaped by my army service. I had 
never learned in a theological training school the con- 
ventional methods of presenting religious truths, or 
the science of " sacred rhetoric." And I had reason 
to know that my hearers perceived this. I had learned 
to address men in army service, either as new recruits 
or as trained soldiers, and to press on them practi- 
cally their duties, their privileges, and their dangers. 
Abstract truths I had had, as a chaplain, no occasion 
to discuss or to present 

And in civil life, as in army service, there • were 
many who needed to be addressed as those who must 
be in life's warfare, and who needed to realize their 
duties and dangers and privileges, in struggle for and 
in expectation of the victory and rewards in their 
sphere. Such soldiers, especially the young ones, 
appealed to me, and aroused me to appeal to them. 
Peculiarly was this so in the case of students in pre- 
paratory schools and in colleges. On this account I 
liked to address such students, as I moved about my 

143 



1 44 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

New England field in my Sunday-school missionary 
work. As a boy I had been at school at Williston 
Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts. During 
the war I had been in service with many Williston 
boys. After the war I found army comrades among 
the teachers at Williston, and boys in whom I was 
particularly interested were pupils there. And thus 
Williston Seminary became a portion of my field in 
my chaplaincy after the war. 

Preaching to those in that field, I found my ser- 
mons of war-time a good preparation for my sermons 
to them. Well-nigh all the sermons which I preached 
to these boys I had first preached in the army. The 
germ had been started there ; the change of soil and 
of atmosphere, of course, demanded changes in de- 
velopment and treatment; but in both places the de- 
sired result and fruitage were the same. The train- 
ing which I had had for the army chaplaincy proved 
to be a good training for my religious addresses to 
young cadets who were yet in preparation for active 
service in life's warfare. And in trying to meet this 
new demand on my best abilities and efforts, I was 
really pursuing a post-graduate course of study in the 
line of my maturer life-studies and endeavors. And 
this fact may give a certain value to these sermons as 
showing the method of their preparing and the pur- 
pose of their delivering. Obviously they are not con- 
ventional sermons, nor are they likely to be valued as 
such. 

When I had been preaching to the Williston boys 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 145 

one of the foregoing sermons inspired by the soldier 
spirit, Principal Marshall Henshaw asked me into his 
office on Monday morning to request a special favor 
from me, or to lay a particular duty on me. He said 
kindly that my style of preaching seemed to attract 
and lay hold on the boys, and he wanted my help in 
meeting a particular difficulty that he had to contend 
with in their control. He said that even well-disposed 
boys who, if left to themselves, would prefer to do 
right, would often be induced to go with the crowd 
in the wrong direction. It was not a matter of wrong 
purpose so much as it was a lack of determined inde- 
pendence in action. He believed that with my method 
of getting at boys I could find a way of meeting this, 
as an ordinary clergyman could not. He wished that 
when I came again I would preach on the subject. 

So with this mission thus laid on me, my thoughts 
were at once turned to the subject. The preparing 
for the doing of that special duty proved to be one of 
the developing periods of my life-course. Having 
decided on my text and sermon-plan, I set myself to 
gathering the material for the filling in of the outline. 
I sought special needful knowledge and illustrative 
facts in books in my own library, and then I bought 
other books by the score. I desired to be confi- 
dent as to every statement made by me, and to be 
sure as to the fitness and force of every illustration 
employed. 

Week after week went by, and yet I was by no 
means ready with my sermon, or even prepared for its 



146 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

writing. I made notes of the material I would like 
to use in my sermon ; but I found these notes expand- 
ing and multiplying beyond all my anticipations. As 
my sermon was to touch on all the phases of true 
manhood, I must know about the proper training of 
the body, the intellect, and the spirit of one who would 
have character as a true man, and hence there came 
much of my preliminary study. 

After some eleven months of this preparation, I 
set myself to arranging my gathered material. In 
order to have it fairly before me for selection, I made 
a careful index of the whole, so that I might study 
that and then choose what I deemed the best. I 
then began to write. It was only after some thirteen 
months from the time I undertook this mission that 
I had a sermon ready for its preaching. As the basis 
of this sermon to students, I took the text and sermon- 
plan on which I had preached to my regiment before 
Richmond in the last year of the war. We had just 
then been receiving many new recruits and " substi- 
tutes," who needed to be taught the first duties of a 
soldier and a man. My words to them, therefore, 
were fitting words for any young man. We never 
get beyond fundamentals, in the army or out of it. 

I mention these facts as illustrative of the truth 
that, although I had no formal training in a theologi- 
cal seminary or divinity school to fit me to preach to 
soldiers or students, I did not assume to give my 
hearers, as worth their having, that which had cost 
me nothing, or which I had not studied for. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 147 

That special sermon for students represents a turn- 
ing-point and training period in my life, and I value it 
for what its preparation did for me, aside from what 
its hearing may have induced any hearer to do for 
himself 

Having prepared a special sermon for students, as 
already described, I preached it in Easthampton, in 
February, 1869. It seemed to interest the boys, and 
it was heartily approved by the instructors and other 
grown-up hearers. Dr. Samuel T. Seelye, in whose 
pulpit I preached it, was so much interested in that 
sermon that he wrote to Amherst, where were his 
two distinguished brothers, and urged that I should 
be asked to preach it before the college students. 
Accordingly, I was invited to do so. 

Having re-adapted my sermon to meet the needs of 
older students, I preached it one Sunday morning 
before the students and professors of Amherst Col- 
lege, and by request I repeated it, in the afternoon of 
the same day, before the Agricultural College of 
Massachusetts in another part of town. It was most 
warmly received in both places. 

Professor L. Clark Seelye, now President of Smith 
College for Women at Northampton, but then a pro- 
fessor and college pastor in Amherst College, was en- 
thusiastic about the sermon. Writing me about it 
several weeks later, he said: 

'* The sermon which you preached to our students 
last term was of great benefit to them. I have never 
listened to a more successful exposure of those follies 



1 48 Shoes and Rations Jor a Long March 

to which students are naturally addicted, and about 
which they are also peculiarly sensitive. 

" Had any member of the faculty said the same 
things, the effect would have been far different It 
would have been regarded merely as an attempt to 
maintain college authority, and very likely the young 
men would have behaved worse than ever. It is, in 
fact, a very delicate matter for any one to criticise the 
standard of morality which is common among stu- 
dents. Your good humor made your plea all the 
more effective ; and I think the moral standard of the 
college has been higher ever since. 

** I heartily wish the sermon might be given in every 
college in the land." 

President Clark, of the Agricultural College, who 
was an experienced soldier in the Civil War, and who 
therefore appreciated the army-chaplain standpoint, 
wrote of the sermon as "very interesting, and full of 
valuable instruction and effective exhortation. It 
seems to me peculiarly adapted to benefit young men 
ill schools and colleges who are engaged in qualifying 
themselves for active life." He hoped I might " preach 
it a thousand times." 

Inconsequence of the representations from Amherst 
College officials as to this sermon, I was invited to 
preach it at Williams College, and again at Yale. At 
the latter place it was heard not only by students, but 
by professors of the theological as well as of the 
academic faculty. That those who were set to train 
men as preachers and teachers perceived that / had 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 149 

not learned the lessons they deemed most impor- 
tant to a clergyman, and that they were unfamiliar 
with an army chaplain's way of talking to men, 
was made clear in their subsequent conversations 
with me. 

While I had evidence that both in the faculty and 
among the students interest in my theme had been 
aroused by my discourse, there was discussion for 
some time afterward as to the unconventional and 
army-chaplain style of address which I employed in 
the pulpit. This was clearly brought out in an ex- 
tended conversation on the subject which I had with 
an influential member of the theological faculty. He 
had no criticism to make as to any error observed in 
the truths taught, or any lack of reverence in the 
spirit and manner of the preacher. Yet the utterly 
unconventional and non-divinity-school style of ser- 
monizing was an evident shock to him. And, there- 
fore, I speak of this thus fully in submitting to the 
public these specimens of army-chaplain-like sermons, 
with all their differences from the theological seminary 
standard of sermons. 

After his full explanation of doubts on the subject, 
my friend, the professor, said frankly and with great 
kindness : 

" Now do not misunderstand me, Mr. Trumbull, or 
think that I am criticising your sermon or your way 
of sermonizing. That sermon to young men was re- 
markable in the interest it excited and in the impres- 
sion it produced. It has been a subject of conversation 



150 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

among its hearers ever since. Our [theological] pro- 
fessors have discussed that sermon and its method 
with not a little interest. We never heard any sermon 
like it before. That you did what you undertook to 
do there can be no doubt. But I am free to say, that 
if your idea of the way to sermonize to young men 
is the correct way, then our way of training ministers 
in this theological seminary for forty years has been 
all wrong — all wrong." And there we two left the 
subject. 

It may be well to mention that I told this story at 
the time to good Dr. Bushnell, who always had an 
interest in me and my work. In his characteristic 
heartiness he said bluntly : 

'* Well, Trumbull, you are right in this thing, and 
they are wrong." 

Not all readers or hearers will agree with either 
Dr. Bushnell or with the theological professor as to 
this matter. Some will agree with the one and some 
with the other. Yet others again will think, with the 
Connecticut Baptist evangelist, that " the best way to 
preach is to preach every way." But out of my per- 
sonal experience I must continue to think that an 
army chaplain would not be best fitted for his preach- 
ing by a strict adherence to the methods laid down in 
the average theological seminary. 



DUTY OF BEING A MAN 

Be thou strong therefore ^ and shew thyself a man " 
(i Kings 2:2). 

These were the words of the dying King David to 
Solomon, his son and kingly successor. They are not 
his entire charge, but they form its substance and, if 
wisely interpreted, they include its remainder. " Be 
thou strong, . . . and shew thyself a man " ! — a fully- 
developed, well-rounded, complete man ; every power 
in play, every high possibility attained. What more 
could David ask of Solomon ? 

And who had a better right than David to summon 
others to manliness ? He was himself a man, — a 
man all over, and through and through, — perhaps the. 
truest type of simple manhood the world has known ; 
a man after God's own heart, and in very much a 
man after man's own heart : " David the son of Jesse, 
. . . the man who was raised up on high, the anointed 
of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel " 
(2 Sam. 23 : i). 

Never, besides, was there a mere man who so well 
as David ** knew what was in man," and what it was 
to be a man. It were better said of David than of 
that other grand old patriarch : 

151 



152 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" This was the truest warrior 

That ever bucl<:led sword, 
This the most gifted poet 

That ever breathed a word ; 
And never earth's philosopher 

Traced with his golden pen, 
On the deathless page, truths half so sage, 

As he wrote down for men." ^ 

As " the days of David drew nigh that he should 
die," he turned himself on his couch, to his son and 
royal heir, and in parting command to him who must 
represent his family and kingly glory, declared : " I 
go the way of all the earth : be thou strong there- 
fore, and shew thyself a man " — I die. Consider my 
story. Shun my follies. Be encouraged by my suc- 
cesses. Have my courage and faith. And do a better 
— 'because completer — work than mine. 

" So David slept with his fathers ; " but his dying 
words ring down through the ages, and sound in this 
room to-day, as the call of God to each one of you, 
young men : " Be thou strong, . , . and shew thyself 
a man" ! God asks no child of his to be /ess than a 
man, and he demands of none in this life to be any- 
thing 7nore. 

" Shew thyself a man " ! That is the call that I 
reiterate to each of you : not merely be a saint, ready 
for heaven, but be a man, fitted for earth's duties. 
My appeal to you is not from the conviction that you 
must die, but from the thought that you may live. I 
do not so urge you to prepare for any future^ as I do 

1 Mrs. Alexander's " Burial of Moses.'' 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 153 

entreat you to fill your place in the present. " I have 
written unto you, young men," said the beloved apos- 
tle, "because ye are strong " (i John 2 : 14); and as 
St. John's follower in the faith, I preach unto you, 
young men, because you are strong, and I want you 
to use your strength manfully. 

Be strong and be men at all times and in every- 
thing, — in your studies and in your social life, in your 
recreations and in your worship. " David danced 
before the Lord with all his might " (2 Sam. 6 : 14). 
If you must dance, that is the way to do it, — before 
the Lord, and with all your might ! And David 
prepared with all his might for the house of his God 
(i Chron. 29 : 2). His manfulness, his wholeness of 
soul, showed itself in all his actions. 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . with all 
thy might " (Deut. 6 : 5) is " the first and great com- 
mandment ; " and many that follow are " like unto it " 
(Matt. 22 : 38, 39). " Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
to do, do it with thy might " (Eccl. 9 : 10), said the 
inspired Preacher. And St. Paul added, "Whatso- 
ever ye do, do it heartily " (Col. 3 : 23). Said the 
good John Joseph Gurney, writing to his son at 
school : " Be a whole man to everything. At Latin, 
be a whole man to Latin. At geometry or his- 
tory, be a whole man to geometry or history. At 
play, be a whole man to play. At washing or dress- 
ing, be a whole man to washing or dressing. Above 
all, at meeting [Gurney was a Quaker], be a whole 
man to meeting." 



154 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

It was said of Lord Brougham, that " if his station 
in life had been only that of a shoeblack, he would 
never have rested satisfied until he had become the best 
shoeblack in England." Thus always with true man- 
liness, — it will show itself as surely in one sphere as in 
another. The student who heeds the inspired injunc- 
tion of the text, will be a man alike at play, at study, 
and at prayer, — in the culture of body, mind, and of 
spirit. 

I. In the care of the body, show thyself a man. 

Bodily vigor is hardly less a Christian attainment 
than it is a source of manly pride. God has ever 
honored this in its place, as a possession and a charge 
of his children. The record stands of the first leader 
of God's peculiar people that he was " a goodly child " 
(Exod. 2 : 2), and that when he was an hundred and 
twenty years old " his eye was not dim, nor his nat- 
ural force abated " (Deut. 34 : 7). And of the first 
king of that nation, God declares that he was " a 
choice young man, and a goodly : and there was not 
among the children of Israel a goodlier person than 
he : from his shoulders and upward he was higher 
than any of the people " (i Sam. 9 : 2). 

That which bringeth " redness of eyes," or " wounds 
without cause " (Prov. 23 : 29), or pallor of cheek, or 
weakness of limb, is as well a sin as a shame. ** Your 
body," says St. Paul, " is the temple of the Holy Ghost. 
. . . Therefore glorify God in your body " (i Cor. 6 : 
19, 20). " The glory of young men is their strength " 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 155 

(Prov. 20 : 29), says Solomon. Beware, then, young 
man, lest, like Esau, in an evil hour of weakness and 
desire, you barter for a mess of pottage your birth- 
right of glory by indulgence in what lessens your 
strength and diminishes your manhness. 

The expressive adjective " stalwart " is but the old 
Saxon " stael-weordh," — worth stealing, good for 
something ; leaving the unwelcome inference that he 
who is a not stalwart man is not worth having at any 
price. 

** It was there that the battle of Waterloo was won ! " 
said the Iron Duke, pointing, in his later years, to the 
playground at Eton, where his own great strength 
had been early developed. And Waterloo was not 
the only one of earth's struggles that hinged on the 
power of physical endurance. 

Genius itself has been defined as " the capacity for 
an unlimited amount of work." It is certainly true 
that a man's mental activity and freeness are largely 
dependent on his bodily condition. "There can 
scarcely be a diseased or abnormal condition of any 
organ in the human system that will not have some 
influence upon the mind," says a distinguished New 
England physician. 

Even in the highest spiritual life, a man is not lifted 
above the power of his body to affect his happiness. 
God's grace delights in his temples when they are 
kept undefiled for himself, with strength and beauty 
as their supports. Says one of our quaintest and 
most eloquent American divines : " Dyspepsia and 



156 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

disordered bile and imperfect secretions are foul 
fiends, all of them, and calomel and quinine have an 
apostolic calling to the casting out of devils. Medi- 
cine is ofttimes a very means of grace — and a wise 
physician better for the soul than a whole sanhedrin 
of ministers." ^ 

2. But, if your bodily development is a duty as a 
man, your mental culture is not less so. 

When Solomon, as Israel's king, sought to conform 
to his father's injunction in our text, and to show 
himself a man, he asked of the Lord wisdom as the 
first requisite for his sphere. " And the speech pleased 
the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing" (i 
Kings 3 : 10); and the king's fame was thenceforward 
greater, because of his wisdom than for his wealth 
and glory. And Solomon's testimony as to the bless- 
ings of knowledge was : " Understanding is a well- 
spring of life unto him that hath it " (Prov. 16 : 22); 
and " The man that wandereth out of the way of un- 
derstanding shall remain in the congregation of the 
dead " (Prov. 21 : 16). 

Bodily strength will avail you but little in practical 
life, if there is no mental control of it. The muscular 
and brainless athlete, whose image stares from the 
circus show-bill, would hardly pass for a model man 
anywhere. " Wisdom is better than strength " (Eccl. 
9 : 16). It is only to your shame if, while in the 
" first nine " of the ball club, you are in the last three 

1 Rev, Dr. Charles Wadsworth. 



My Chaplaincy Among Stiide7its 157 

of your Greek division. If book-men look down on 
you, the cheers of the boating crowd ought to give 
you httle comfort. And you may well blush if the 
younger classmate, who envied your power in the 
" giant-swing " of the gymnasium, dwarfs your class 
performance in the natural sciences. In the long run, 
the good scholar outstrips the fine gymnast. For the 
race of life, he whose head is level is better fitted than 
he whose legs are strong. 

Whatever is to be your future occupation in life, 
you must be largely dependent for success on your 
brain-power. In the higher intellectual walks, this is 
obviously true. It is scarcely less so in the lower 
spheres of effort. " The best preparation for special 
pursuits," said President Hill of Harvard, " is a gen- 
eral education. It was in defense of this doctrine that 
Horace Mann brought forward the striking fact . . . 
that the wages earned by piece-work in a cloth mill 
were in proportion to the time previously spent by 
the operative in studying arithmetic and geography 
and grammar. Similar statistics to show the advan- 
tages of general education in special pursuits might 
doubtless be gathered in other departments of labor." 

It may be doubted, for instance, if A. T. Stewart, 
the humble Irish lad, would have come to be the first 
American merchant of his day if he had not stood 
first in his class at Dublin University. William B. 
Astor, as the son of the richest man of his generation 
in this country, would hardly have held and multi- 
plied his inherited wealth — in exception to the general 



158 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

course of sons of rich men — so as to be himself now 
foremost among our millionaires, if it were not for the 
benefits of his college training. An inside look at 
the most notorious firm of gold gamblers and railroad 
swindlers in all our land, ^ would show that the obvious 
coxcombery and knavishness of the senior partner 
were pushed into a power they could not otherwise 
attain to through the disciplined intellect of an un- 
principled Harvard graduate — a less-known member 
of the firm. 

Henry Ward Beecher says truly: "If a man has 
nothing to do but turn a grindstone, he had better be 
educated ; if a man has nothing to do but to stick 
pins on a paper, he had better be educated ; if he has 
to sweep the streets, he had better be educated. It 
makes no difference what you do, you will do it better 
if you are educated." 

Understand, therefore, and appreciate the practical 
value of a good education, you who are yet under- 
graduates, and see that you make the most of every 
instructor, every recitation, every help to mental im- 
provement. Do not commit the folly of counting 
your instructor and yourself as pulling at opposite ends 
of a rope, or as opponents in a sharply-contested game, 
where an advantage over him by shirking, " ponying," 
or deception, inures to your profit; but look at him, 
rather, as your senior partner, whose experience and 
knowledge furnish capital for your use and benefit, 
and whose interests are so linked with your own as 

» " Jim " Fisk & Co. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 159 

to ensure to you his sympathy and hearty assistance 
in all your intellectual endeavors. Remember that — 
at all events, in the study hours and at recitation — 
" Wisdom is the principal thing- ; therefore get wisdom : 
and with all thy getting get understanding. . . . Take 
fast hold of instruction ; let her not go : keep her ; 
for she is thy life " (Prov. 4:7-13). 

J. But, with body and mind both cared for, your 
soul, or spirit, must not be neglected if you would show 
yourself a man, — a man, I mean, in the present Ufe, 
leaving out for the time all consideration of the eternal 
future. 

Some one has forcibly suggested that it is not wise 
for us to say that we have souls ; for the truth is we 
are souls, and have bodies. There is a sermon in the 
mere title of a modern work on " The Human Body 
and Its Connection with Man." Our souls, or our 
spirits, are our immortal selves. Ourselves — our 
inner being — must be well considered in efforts at 
personal culture. As a man ''thinketh in his heart, 
so is he " (Prov. 23:7). " It is character," says one 
of our best American essayists, ^ " which gives author- 
ity to opinions, puts virile meaning into words, and 
burns its way through impediments insurmountable 
to the large in brain who are weak in heart." As 
good Dr. Joel Hawes, my own revered pastor, de- 
clared, " Character is the measure of the man, — is, 
indeed, the man. He is what his character is." 

1 E. P. Whipple. 



1 60 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Hence the force of Solomon's injunction, " Keep thy 
heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues 
of life " (Prov. 4 : 23). 

There is no pure life, no high-toned manliness, to 
one whose heart is not pure, whose conscience is not 
high-toned. Said Edmund Burke, in his plea against 
Warren Hastings : *' I never knew a man who was bad, 
fit for service that was good. . . . The man seems par- 
alytic on that side, his muscles there have lost their 
very tone and character, — they can not move. In 
short, the accomplishment of anything good is a 
physical impossibility for such a man." ** A good 
man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth 
forth good things : and an evil man out of the evil 
treasure bringeth forth evil things " (Matt. 12 : 35). 

And the character which comes out of a cleansed 
heart is good capital for the business of every-day 
life. Even for present dividends, "A good name is 
rather to be chosen than great riches " (Prov. 22 : i). 
" That character is power, is true in a much higher 
sense than that knowledge is power." ^ It gives influ- 
ence. It secures remuneration. Says a well-known 
English writer:^ "Of two poets, otherwise equal, the 
Christian is the greater ; of two statesmen, the Chris- 
tian attains the more permanent fame; of two artists 
equally gifted, the Christian takes the higher place; 
of two merchants equally practical and far-seeing, the 
Christian reaches the surest success." 

And the honored president of Yale University^ 

1 Samuel Smiles, 2 William Guest. ^ Theodore Woolsey. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students i6i 

said of him who would be a true gentleman : " It 
is true, and a most important truth, that none, 
however highly endowed by nature, and however 
lofty in his aims, can be a true gentleman, in the high- 
est sense of the term, without that spirit of piety, and 
that sense of obligation toward God, by which, more 
than by all things else, men are assisted in the dis- 
charge of their duties to one another."^ What more 
attractive, manly model is found in English history 
than Sir Philip Sidney ? That which gave him pre- 
eminence, while yet a youth of twenty-one, as " the 
ornament and boast of the splendid court of Eliza- 
beth," was rather character than genius. As soldier, 
as statesman, as poet, and as wit, he had not only 
peers but superiors ; but " in the singular beauty of 
his [Christian] Hfe," he had no contemporary rival. 

Thus down to the present day " the world, despite 
its apparent indifference, is never insensible to the 
beauty of a Christian life, to the dignity of a virtuous 
and spotless character." ^ Such a character is at a 
premium even in Wall street, whatever sneers may 
there be indulged at hypocritical professions. It is 
but a httle time ago that the sharpest knaves there 
were giving in excuse for their being duped by a new- 
comer, that he was the son of a Christian minister, 
and they rested on his likeness to a godly father. 

Hon. Amasa Walker, in his classification of wages 
as a politico-economist, puts as highest and in great- 
est demand, moral power, — "the power which gives 

1 New Englander, Oct., 1847. ^ Record of Noble Deeds. 



1 62 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

fa man] such a control over the appetites, passions, 
and propensities as affords assurance that under no 
circumstances of trial or temptation will he ever depart 
from the strictest line of duty ; " and he adds, that " as 
such men are more rare than those having only physi- 
cal power, or physical and mental power combined, 
they will command higher rewards, — the highest 
paid for any class of services." It is God's truth, 
verified in man's uniform experience, that " godliness 
is profitable unto all things, having promise of the 
life that now is, and of that which is to come'" 
(i Tim. 4 : 8). 

But character can be secured, and godliness attained, 
only through heart-strengthening by the power of the 
Holy Ghost, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 

As the body comes naked into the world, and must 
be clothed from without to bring comfort or to con- 
form to decency, so the soul enters the world in naked- 
ness, and must be clothed upon with the righteousness 
of the Crucified One : wherefore, young men, " put 
ye on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13 : 14), else 
your souls will stand stark, shivering, shameful. If 
you have not yet been clothed with a new soul-gar- 
ment, you have not yet begun to truly live ; you are 
not a full man in any proper sense. 

" The head of every man is Christ " (i Cor. 11: 13), 
and none '* stand complete " except " in him ; " or, as 
it has been paraphrased by the poet : 

"A Christian is the highest style of man." ^ 
1 Edward Young. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 163 

" Be thou strong therefore, and [thus] shew thyself 
a man " ! 

Aye! " Be thou strong',' for it requires strength to 
show one's self a man. Strength is needed to get up 
early in the morning, — not to say, when the clock 
strikes or " chum " calls, " Yet a little sleep, a little 
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep " (Prov. 
6 : 10), Strength is needed to go to bed at a proper 
hour, to walk merely for exercise, to bathe merely 
for health, to eat and drink only what is proper, and 
that at proper times ; to turn away when the soul has 
appetite from the sparkling wine which is red, and 
" giveth its color " temptingly in the cup ; to shun in 
the full flush of youthful passion her who " lieth in 
wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors 
among men;" to resist insane impulses to defile and 
destroy one's own body; to keep clear of the gam- 
bling group, with its exhausting excitements and its 
ruinous impellings ; to maintain good resolutions, to 
break up old habits of indulgence, to trample on 
suddenly sprung temptations ; " For the flesh lusteth 
against the Spirit: . . . and these are contrary the one 
to the other " (Gal. 5 : 17) ; and you see a law in your 
members, warring against the law of your minds, and 
bringing you into captivity to the law of sin, which is 
in your members (Rom. 7 : 23), and you must fight 
or die. 

Yet fight you may, in sure hope of victory ; for in 
the battles of every-day life no true man — young 
or old — is the devil's prisoner unless by surrender. 



1 64 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

"God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be 
tempted above that ye are able ; but will with the 
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may 
be able to bear it" (i Cor. 10 : 13). And added 
strength shall be yours through each new victory in 
your daily life-struggle. He who successfully com- 
bats temptation, compacts and hardens thereby his 
moral muscles; and with every succeeding triumph 
his eye flashes fresh brightness, and his firmer tread 
and nobler bearing proclaim him more the man 
than ever. 

Good soldiers are never made without hard fight- 
ing. The grand Old Guard of Napoleon grew into 
glory by their service and their successes. It is said 
of them : " Nothing like them was ever seen when 
they advanced, carrying arms ; with their great caps, 
white waistcoats and gaiters, they all looked just 
alike, and you could plainly see 'twas the emperor's 
right arm moving. He looked upon his Guard as 
upon his own flesh and blood ; he could always re- 
place thirty or forty thousand men by conscription ; 
but to have another such Guard he must commence 
at twenty-five, and gain fifty victories, and what re- 
mained of the best, most solid, and toughest, would 
be the Guard." ^ 

So of those who fight the good fight daily with 
the world, the flesh, and the devil, keeping the faith 
in their great Captain ! Their enemies only help 
them to more of soldierly manhood. 

y Erckmann-Chatrian. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 165 

" Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 

That of our vices we can frame 
A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 
All common things, each day's events, 

That with the hour begin and end, 
Our pleasures and our discontents, 

Are rounds by which we may ascend." ^ 

Or, as Job declared it : " The righteous also shall 
hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall 
be stronger and stronger" (Job 17 : 9). 

On the contrary, every yielding to evil weakens the 
tempted one. He who has been worsted in one fight 
is in poorer plight for the next. And no enemy is so 
formidable as the one with whom a man has already 
made terms. " A comparatively brief and moderate 
indulgence in vicious pleasures appears to lower the 
tone and impair both the delicacy and efficiency of 
the brain for life," says as practical and sensible a 
writer as James Parton. 

He who spake " as never man spake," declared that 
" that [of sin] which cometh out of the mouth, this 
defileth a man" (Matt. 15 : 11), — not merely proves 
his inner defilement, but promotes it externally. *' We 
should take care of the beginning of sin," says Bishop 
Wilson. " Venture all on the first attempt. Die 
rather than yield one single step," adds Dr. Owen. 

A man never gets fairly over his first debauch. 
One glass too much of alcoholic drinks will some- 
times cause a man's conscience — if not his brain — to 

1 Longfellow. 



1 66 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

reel for a lifetime. Once going in the way of forbid- 
den indulgence may prove a permanent harm to char- 
acter and to peace of soul. Yet temptation to these 
sins will come to you as a college student. You can- 
not evade the struggle, but in divinely given strength 
you can avoid defeat. 

" Not from the strife itself to set thee free, 
But more to nerve — doth Victory 
Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime." * 

To those who face temptation for the first time, and to 
those who meet its renewed attacks, the call of God 
is repeated, " Be strong, and quit yourselves like men : 
. . . quit yourselves like men, and fight " (i Sam. 4 : 9). 

As a practical matter, you should understand that 
in the training of your intellect more, by far, depends 
on your strength — your determination and persever- 
ance — than on any native endowments or adventitious 
help of surroundings. No man bounds up the hill 
of science with running jumps, impelled by his genius. 
That ascent is made only by straightforward heel- 
and-toe walking, and in the toilsome travel a resolute 
will is worth more than a colossal brain. 

" If I have done the public any service," said Sir 
Isaac Newton, " it is due to nothing but industry and 
patient thought." And Elihu Burritt adds, " All that 
I have accomplished, or expect or hope to accom- 
phsh, has been and will be by that plodding, patient, 
persevering process of accretion which builds the ant 
heap — particle by particle, thought by thought, fact 

1 Bulwer's Schiller. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students i6y 

by fact." Said Charles Dickens, on this point, " My 
own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can 
most truthfully assure you, would never have served 
me as it has but for the habit of common-place, hum- 
ble, patient, daily toiling, drudging attention." Buffon 
said of genius, *' It is patience." Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds held that excellence, even in high art, " however 
expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may 
be acquired ; " and Michel Angelo believed the same 
as to sculpture. Said Beethoven, ** The barriers are 
not erected which can say to aspiring talents and in- 
dustry, ' Thus far and no farther.' " 

Sydney Smith declared characteristically, " I am 
convinced that a man might sit down as systemati- 
cally and as successfully to the study of wit as he 
might to the study of mathematics ; and I would 
answer for it, that, by giving up only six hours a day 
to being witty, he should come on prodigiously before 
midsummer, so that his friends should hardly know 
him again." Giardini thought that the violin could 
be played by any man who would give twelve hours 
a day to it for twenty years ; and there is an air of 
probability about that simple statement, for in all in- 
tellectual acquirements " the hand of the diligent 
maketh rich " (Prov. 10:4), ^i^d " the soul of the dili- 
gent shall be made fat " (Prov. 13:4). 

Thomas Jackson's (A. D. 1647) lesson from the 
pawn's progress to the king-row in the Game of 
Chess, of two centuries ago, is as full of truth for the 
student now as then. 



1 68 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" A lowly one I saw, 
With aim fixt high ; 
Ne to the right, ne to the left, veering, 
He marched by his law. 
The crested knight passed by, 
And haughty surplice vest ; 
But onward, toward his hest, 
With patient step, he pressed ; 
Steadfast his eye. 
Now, lo ! the last door yieldeth, 
A crown his forehead shieldeth, 
His hand a scepter wieldeth. 

" So mergeth the true hearted, 
With aim fixt high. 
From place obscure and lowly : 
Veereth he nought. — 
His work is wrought : — 
How many loyal paths be trod. 
So many royal crowns hath God." 

Sure it is that the more distinguished men in every 
department of mental effort have exercised wondrous 
patience in their best work. Newton wrote his Chron- 
ology fifteen times over before it satisfied him, and 
Gibbon his Memoir nine times. Montesquieu said to 
a friend, of one of his writings, " You will read it in 
a few hours ; but I assure you it cost me so much 
labor that it has whitened my hair." Titian, in a letter 
to Charles V., wrote, " I send your Majesty the Last 
Supper, after working at it almost daily for seven 
years." Jenner spent twenty-three years on his theory 
of vaccination before issuing his first treatise concern- 
ing it. Humboldt sent the outline of his Cosmos to 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 169 

a friend just sixty-six years before he forwarded its 
last sheets to the printer. 

Lord Brougham said to Zachary Macauley that 
he wrote the peroration to his speech in defense of 
Queen CaroHne, perhaps his most effective passage of 
oratory, at least twenty times, and after he had for 
weeks been reading and meditating over Demos- 
thenes. Tom Moore told Washington Irving that he 
had hunted six wrecks for one word to complete his 
last song. Said Daniel Webster to Pitt Fessenden, of 
his own more brilliant forensic utterances : " Do you 
suppose these terse sayings were made from the spur 
of the moment ? By no means ; they were the result 
of study, — and close study, too. . . . The words which 
so fitly represent England's power, so often quoted, 
and so much praised, were strung together while I 
stood on the American side of the river, near Niagara 
Falls, and heard the British drums beaten on the 
Canada side." 

If more young men would do the hard work of 
genius, there would be more results of genius in the 
world to rejoice over. 

" The prize can but belong 
To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails ; 
In hfe, the victor}' only crowns the strong — 
He who is feeble fails." ^ 

" The difference between boys," said Arnold of 
Rugby, " consists not so much in talent as in energy." 
" The truest wisdom," said Napoleon, " is a resolute 

1 Bulwer's Schiller. 



1 70 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

determination." Sir Fowell Buxton wrote, towards 
the close of his useful life : " The longer I live, the 
more I am certain that the great difference between 
men, between the feeble and the powerful, is energy — 
invincible determination — a purpose once fixed, and 
then death or victory. That quality will do anything 
that can be done in this world ; and no talents, no cir- 
cumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged 
creature a man without it." Buxton held, moreover, 
that any man could do what any other man had done, 
provided he merely gave more time and energy to it, 
to overcome his disadvantage of natural lack. The 
history of many of the world's great ones tends to 
confirm the views of such thinkers. 

Daniel Webster said of himself, at Exeter Academy: 
" There was one thing I could not do. I could not 
make a declamation. I could not speak before the 
school. ... I never could command sufficient resolu- 
tion." Yet when he applied the long passive will^ 
Daniel Webster made a very reputable public speaker. 
That ought to be encouraging to the average student. 
Disraeli was laughed down when he made his first 
speech in the House of Commons. He said deter- 
minedly, when he found he could not go on : "I shall 
sit down now, but the time will come when you will 
hear me." He was, by and by, the eloquent leader of 
that same House of Commons, and in fact of all Europe. 

In 1759, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, as a pupil, 
"was, by common consent, both of parent and pre- 
ceptor, pronounced to be ' a most impenetrable 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 171 

dunce.'" Twenty-one years later the struggling dunce 
essayed his first speech in Parliament. So poor was 
then his success that a friend told him frankly, to his 
face, that oratory was evidently not in his line. Sher- 
idan rested his head on his hand for a few minutes in 
thought, and then in vehement assertion of manly re- 
solve, he cried, " It is in me, however, and [with an 
oath] it shall come out." It was seven years from 
then that the " impenetrable dunce " delivered his cel- 
ebrated speech against Warren Hastings, " whose 
effect upon its hearers," says Tom Moore, in the biog- 
raphy of Sheridan, *' has no parallel in the annals of 
ancient or modern eloquence." Edmund Burke de- 
clared that speech to be " the most astonishing effort 
of eloquence, argument and wit united, of which there 
was any record or tradition." Charles James Fox 
said, " All that he had ever heard, all that he had ever 
read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, 
and vanished like vapor before the sun." And Wil- 
liam Pitt acknowledged " that it surpassed all the elo- 
quence of ancient and modern times, and possessed 
everything that genius or art could furnish, to agitate 
and control the human mind." ^ 

Could any of you do better than that, young men ? 
Some of you have as good a start as he had. Deter- 
mination gave that dunce power. 

Adam Clarke was another " grievous dunce " until 
his teacher dismissed him from the class in disgrace, 
and his seat-mate taunted him with his stupidity. 

iSee Memoirs of Sheridan. 



1 7 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Then he was fairly aroused, feeling, as he expressed 
it, " as if something had broken within him." " Shall 
I ever be a dunce, and the butt of these fellows' in- 
sults ? " he asked. Snatching up a book, he started 
on the road to manhood. Neither his capacity nor 
his progress has ever been questioned since then. 
Isaac Newton was backward in all his school studies 
until an overbearing comrade was cruel enough to 
kick him in the stomach. This fired him with indig- 
nant courage, and he determined on revenge through 
superior scholarship. He never halted thenceforward 
in the race of life until he had distanced every one of 
his fellows, and stood the foremost man on earth. It 
would be a sore temptation to make a similar appli- 
cation to many a sluggish student if one were sure 
that he could thus be surely projected into the New- 
tonian sphere of scholarship. But, while that could 
hardly be relied on as a method of treatment, it is 
true that whatever arouses a youth to a determined, 
manly eftbrt in pursuit of knowledge, secures to him 
a higher meed of success. 

Indeed, a savant of science not long ago advocated 
before the British Academy of Medicine the use of 
electricity as a mental stimulant. He cites a dunce 
who was ** electrified '' from the foot to the head of 
his class, and held his own there; and the learned 
gentleman's serious advice to instructors was to treat 
the lowest six in college or academy to a course of 
electricity — as in practical enforcement of the appeal 
of our text. But, young man ! if you are a lagging 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 173 

student, do not wait to be struck by lightning or 
kicked in the stomach, but " be thou strong, . . . and 
shew thyself a man," in resolute, patient industry in 
your every-day studies, and if you are not the equal 
of Sir Isaac Newton you will come nearer to it than 
you have deemed possible, for it is ever true that in 
the field of the mind " He that tilleth his land shall 
have plenty of bread " (Pro v. 28 : 19). 

In your spiritual life, when you are weak, then 
you are strong (2 Cor. 12 : 10). Your soul-strength 
must be that of the clinging vine rather than of the 
sturdy oak, — a strength exercised in the grip of your 
faith on the hand that leads you and the right hand 
that holds you (Psa. 139 : 10). But to such strength 
you are clearly called. You must " be strong in the 
Lord, and in the power of his might " (Eph. 6 : 10) ; 
" strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus " (2 Tim. 
2:1); strong and fearless for every duty. There is 
no true Christian manliness without God-reliant, earth- 
and-hell-defiant courage. 

"According to your faith be it unto you ! " (Matt. 
9 : 29) is the assurance of God to every man who 
follows the Captain of our salvation (Heb. 2 : 10). 
" He that doubteth is damned" (Rom. 14 : 23) for all 
efficient Christian endeavor, and prompt and hearty 
discharge of duty. The divine injunction rings out 
now as of old, ** Have not I commanded thee ? Be 
strong and of a good courage ; be not afraid, neither 
be thou dismayed : for the Lord thy God is with thee 
whithersoever thou goest " (Josh, i : 9). 



1 74 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" Give me the dauntless man, 
Who flinches not from labor or fatigue, 
But moves right out upon the path of duty. 
God will stand by the man who boldy stands 
By God's commands ; God will give him energy 
And courage now, and afterwards success." 

But there is another phase of this great subject that 
is of no little importance. Let us look at that carefully. 
" Be thou strong, . . . and shew thyself a man " ! A 
man — not merely mannish, human, of the race of 
men ; nor yet alone manly and manful, but a man — an 
individual, with your own character, your own convic- 
tions, and your own course in life. The call to this 
individuality of being is plainly included in the text. 
David was enjoining Solomon to personal duties — 
duties which were Solomon's and no one's else. The 
summons to individual action is anew to every soul to 
whom the summons is repeated. And if there be 
one trait which more than another commends its pos- 
sessor to the world, it is manly independence of char- 
acter. This is what shows a man a hero — marks the 
difference between heroism and bravery. 

The Swiss who followed Arnold de Winckelreid 
were all brave. It was the going forward alone, to 
gather the death-harvest of lances into his own great 
heart, that uplifted him as the hero there. Napoleon 
seemed never more the hero than when at Grenoble, 
on his return from Elba, he rested calmly on his indi- 
viduality, as he pressed up to the leveled muskets of 
one of his old regiments which had been ordered to 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 1 75 

fire on him, and said, confidently, "Soldiers of the 
Fifth Regiment ! if there is one among you who 
would kill his Emperor, let him do it ! Here I am ! " 
David, standing out alone before the affrighted army 
of Israel, to defy the Philistines and their champion ; 
Elijah, single-handed, challenging the four hundred 
and fifty prophets of Baal to a struggle, — and thus 
with all the heroes, along through the following ages ; 
St. Telemachus, an humble monk of the desert, 
throwing himself between gladiatorial combatants in 
the Colosseum, and ending in his martyr-death the 
brutal games he battled ; Peter the Hermit, " a bare- 
headed, bare-footed, little, shriveled old man, mounted 
on an ass, wrapped in a coarse garment, girded with a 
rope," traversing Europe to initiate a Crusade, and 
drawing after him all Christendom in arms ; Luther, 
a simple German priest, rising up to hurl defiant 
anathemas against the hierarchy which held the world 
in its grasp ; Cromwell, mustering a psalm-singing, 
praying band of yeoman, to give battle to the skilled 
soldiers of the mightiest monarchy of earth, — down 
to gray-haired John Brown, starting up with a handful 
of pikes, to lead a half-dozen followers to the over- 
throw of a vast system of oppression, hedged in and 
protected by all the civil and military powers of a 
great nation ! All these have won admiration and rev- 
erence, — often wresting applause for their character 
from those who condemned their course, — through 
their audacious personality of performance, because 
each one was strong and showed himself a man. 



176 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" One man among a thousand have I found " (Eccl. 
7 : 28), said the Preacher, in his day. Has the relative 
number of men diminished since then ? J. Stuart 
Mill says that no period of England's history had 
been so little marked by individual originality and 
force as his century. 

" How rare men are ! " said Napoleon. " There.are 
eighteen millions in Italy, and I have with difficulty 
found two, — Dandolo and Melzi." 

Carlyle declares of the people thronging the Strand 
in London, whose personal history he would like to 
ask of each, " No, I will not stop them. If I did, I 
should find they were like a flock of sheep following 
in the track of one another." 

Of our own country, Mr. Beecher has said pithily: 
" We must make men now as they make masts : they 
saw down a dozen trees, splice them together, and 
wind them round with iron hoops, and thus make 
masts that are supposed to be stronger than they 
would be if each was a whole piece of timber. And 
so with men ; if you want a good man, you have to 
take a dozen men, and splice them together, and wind 
the hoops of responsibility round and round them, 
and put watching bands all about them." Ah ! there 
is truth in the cry of an earnest writer : " The great 
want of now is not more men, but more man ; not 
more persons, but more personality." 

Yet, if there is one weakness of man more con- 
temptible than another, it is his proneness to seek 
shelter behind others in shirking the responsibility 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 177 

of his misdeeds. In the sad story of man's first fall, 
there is nothing that goes so to sicken and disgust 
one with Adam as the whine of the sneaking sinner, 
when drawn by God's call from " amongst the trees 
of the garden," — "The woman whom thou gavest to 
be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat " 
(Gen. 3:12). For shame ! thus to sacrifice all manly 
independence, and to disown all personality of re- 
sponsible life ! Sad, sad, it is, that the race so gen- 
erally follows Adam in his cowardice, as it does uni- 
formly in his sinning. 

Oh, the contrast between the first Adam and the 
last Adam — between Eden and Gethsemane ! When 
the blessed Jesus was with the chosen of his disci- 
ples in the garden, and the multitude came out in his 
pursuit, he, " knowing all things that should come 
upon him, went forth, and said unto them. Whom 
seek ye ? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. 
Jesus saith unto them, / am he. . . . If therefore ye 
seek me, let these go their way" (John 18 : 4-8). No 
failure there to meet the dread responsibilities of his 
position! "The man Christ Jesus" (i Tim. 2:5) 
is alone the model. Be thou strong, therefore, to 
show thyself a man like him in this. 

In a college or academy, where so many are gath- 
ered in close association and sympathy, there is 
peculiar danger to a young man of losing his individ- 
ualism by merging it more or less in the mass, or in 
the class, or in the crowd. Many a student for in- 
stance, consents, under a pressure of class, or society. 



178 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

or "crowd" sentiment, to do what his intelligent 
judgment condemns; and in some "bread-and-butter" 
(a famous Yale conflict) or " mark-system " rebellion, 
high-minded, even Christian, youth will say deliber- 
ately, " I didn't think the thing proposed was just 
right ; but the class, or the college, voted it, and of 
course I must fall in." No, you must not, " of course, 
fall in," young man. If a thing is not just right, you 
must stand out against it, in spite of all odds and at 
any cost. " Thou shall not follow a multitude to do 
evil " (Exod. 23 : 2), said God by his servant, Moses. 
" Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind " 
(Rom. 14:5), was the echo of Paul. Said Athanasius : 
" If the world goes against truth, then Athanasius 
goes against the world, and Jehovah and Athana- 
sius are always a majority." 

" The world assaults ? Nor fight, nor fly. 
Stand in some steadfast truth and eye 
The stubborn siege grow old and die." ^ 

Therefore, I say again : " Shew thyself a man,^ ' my 
friend, and this I say to each of you individually^ not 
to you collectively. Do w\\2X you know to be right and 
only that, in spite of the views of your fellows, and 
the votes of your crowd. Don't drink, nor smoke, 
nor gamble, nor visit vile resorts, nor take gates off 
the hinges, nor go out of town without leave, nor haze 
a newcomer, nor seek to annoy an instructor, nor do any 
other either foolish or wicked thing, because others do 

1 Sydney Dobell. . 



My Chaplaincy Amo7ig Students 1 79 

so, — not even if " everybody else does." But to show 
thyself A MAN thus, you must, indeed, be strong. It 
is hard work to do right independently. " It is easy 
in the world to live after the world's opinion," says 
Emerson; "it is easy in solitude to live after our own, 
but the great man is he who, in the midst of the 
crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence 
of solitude." It is easier in any moving throng to go 
with the crowd than to go against it. Driftwood will 
float with the current. The brawny arm is needed to 
pull even the light canoe up-stream. But the current 
of busy life sets hellward, and if you yield to it un- 
resistingly you will find yourself in perdition. The 
better way is to choose your course, and pursue it. 
Then, if for any distance the current runs your way, 
avail yourself of the popular help ; but if its direction 
is contrary, say resolutely, as said a hero of Italy, " I 
had rather take one step forward and die, than one 
step backward and live." 

You may have to bear the jeers or revilings of 
your companions, if you dare conscientiously to 
oppose the public sentiment of your little circle, as 
other manly men have been called to breast mightier 
waves of contempt or hatred in their life-struggles for 
the right; but in the end you will be more sure of sup- 
port than you could be by any courting of popular 
favor. 

" To thine own self be true ; 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 



1 80 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

"He who agrees with himself, agrees with others," 
says Goethe ; and so the heroes of the world have 
found it. Even Punch comes to pay tribute to the 
long-despised John Bright, with this meed of praise : 

" And he can boast, and truly boast, 
The change is not in him, 
He waited, as the years went by, 
Rigid, resolved, and grim. 

" Thought out his thought, and spoke it out, 
Nor cared for howl or cheer ; 
Reckless what faith his speech might win, 
What hate provoke, or fear. 

" Till the great tide, whose forces deep 
Nor men nor modes withstand. 
Bore spoils of office to his feet, 
And power into his hand." 

Perhaps no better single example of manly indi- 
vidualism can be named than the case of Granville 
Sharp. A subordinate clerk in a public office, with- 
out wealth or friends or scholarship, he determined to 
overthrow the slave power in Great Britain, to secure 
decisions in the courts against its rightfulness, and to 
influence national legislation for its downfall. With 
every judge and lawyer in the kingdom opposed to 
him, he entered on the study of law, from its very 
rudiments, and, while toiling daily at his clerkship for 
bread, mastered the great principles of legal science, 
searched the records of judicial decisions and parlia- 
mentary enactments, and gathered the material he 
required for his great purpose. 



My Chaplaincy Among Students 1 8 1 

Publishing the results of his investigations, and 
scattering his essays widely through the land, Sharp 
fought his test case to the highest tribunal of the 
realm, wrested from Lord Chief Justice Mansfield the 
admission of previous error, and secured the promul- 
gation of the decision that freed every slave on the 
soil of England. The result of his personal endeavors 
aroused, for the completion of his mighty undertak- 
ing, Clarkson and Wilberforce and Buxton and 
Brougham ; and the contest he entered on single- 
handed was continued, with constantly fresh accessions 
of friends and favor, until slavery was abolished in all 
the British dominions, and then in America ; and now 
every freedman on our own purified soil owes his lib- 
erty, instrumentally, to the movement begun by Gran- 
ville Sharp, the humble Ordnance clerk, who heard 
the cry of God, "Be thou strong, . . . and shew thyself 
a man " ! and in fearless independence rose up to 
breast and battle and conquer — the world. 

Ah ! it is glorious to be a man ; to do the work of 
a man ; to have your own convictions of duty, and 
to stand by them ; to serve, like David, your " own 
generation" (Acts 13 : 36), until by the will of God 
you fall asleep, knowing, like Job, even while you 
toil and suffer, that your own Redeemer liveth, 
whom you shall see for yourself, and whom yourGy&s 
shall behold and not another (Job 19 : 25-27). 

"Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a 
man," growing " up into him in all things, which is 



1 82 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4: 15), and coming 
through " the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a 
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4 : 13). 



IMPORTANCE OF A HEAD TO A SOLDIER 



VIII 
IMPORTANCE OF A HEAD TO A SOLDIER 

Many a thing that a man thinks he needs, and that 
he certainly wants, when he is in active army service, 
is not actually indispensable to him as a soldier. 
Bodily wholeness is certainly desirable ; it is even 
insisted on for one who offers himself as a new recruit. 
Yet many soldiers have continued to do good army 
service after losing an arm or a leg or an eye. But 
eveiy soldier must have a head. Without a head a 
soldier can not do service, or continue to be a man. 
Hence, as a head is indispensable to a soldier's very 
existence as a soldier, it must be retained by him at 
any cost. 

This is true in every sphere of human warfare. 
Whether a soldier be in camp or on the march, in 
bivouac or in battle, in hospital or in army-prison, on 
detached service or in home life, — whatever else he 
has to be without, he must have a head. This is an 
obvious truth, but it is a truth that is not always borne 
in mind, even bv those who have most reason to con- 
sider it seriously. 

During a season of exceptional religious interest in 
the church of which, in my later life, I have been a 



1 86 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

member, in West Philadelphia, I was asked by my 
pastor to preach for him one Sunday morning. More 
than fifty young persons had, within two weeks, newly 
entered the Christian life in that church, and others 
were earnestly considering such action. New recruits 
were, therefore, before me as I preached, and those 
ready for enlistment were in the congregation. My 
message must be one that every soldier-soul should 
consider, and my appeal should be as earnest and as 
important as I could make it. The sermon preached 
under such circumstances is therefore one that I desire 
to include in the collection of my talks to earth's sol- 
diers, young and old, in view of their needs and 
duties and possibilities. 



HEADSHIP OF CHRIST 

/ would have you knoWy that the head of every man 
is Christ (i Cor. 1 1 : 3). 

It is the Apostle Paul who speaks these words in 
one of his letters to the Corinthians, and what the 
Apostle Paul says he wants to have known is sure 
to be something that is worth knowing. But apart 
from the fact that these words are Paul's words, 
they are, as I view it, the expression of a truth of 
truths in the disclosure of God's plans, and of man's 
needs and possibilities. Indeed, I know of no truth 
that is to be compared with this truth, in the profound- 
ness of its philosophy, or in the importance of its 
practical bearing. 

All that I have learned through my closest studies 
— in the Bible or outside of the Bible — and through 
my experiences and observations in a busy life among 
men, can be summed up in this declaration which 
Paul deemed worth our knowing. When, therefore, 
your pastor asks me to speak to you on an occasion 
like the present, when only the most precious thoughts 
are at all worthy of your attention, I can think of 
nothing that better represents the core of the gospel, 
or that better expresses the deepest conviction of my 

187 



1 88 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

own innermost being, than these words of the Apos- 
tle Paul, which I make my own words, as I come to 
you in Christ's name this morning : 

" I would have you know, that the head of every 
man is Christ." 

Viewing man as you will, there is no completeness 
to him save as he finds it in Christ. No man can live 
as he ought to live, or be what he ought to be, or 
have the hope that he ought to have, apart from God 
in Christ. In Christ there is a possibility to every 
man of the truest life, of the noblest being, of the 
grandest hope, conceivable for man. 

Viewing Christ as you will, he is the world's center 
of interest and of admiration. Even apart from all 
theological dogmas concerning his nature and his 
power, Christ stands an absolutely unique figure in 
human history. There was never one like him before. 
There has never been one like him since. No char- 
acter like his was conceived of until he had lived his life. 
When his life was lived, it became at once the standard 
by which all other lives were measured ; and no one 
now dreams of a rival to that life as a standard of 
moral and spiritual measurement to the end of time. 

With man as man is, and with Christ as Christ is, 
Christ must be to the complete man all that the head 
is to the body, as a source of guidance, of balance, 
and of vivifying power. And without Christ the best 
of men lacks that sure knowledge, that abiding peace, 
and that fulness of life, which are secured to those of 
whom Christ is the head. 



Importmice of a Head to a Soldier 1 89 

/. '' / would have you know, that the head of every 
man is Christ'' in the realm of all true knowledge con- 
cerning practical duty in daily life, as well as concerning 
all tJdngs beyond and above the realities of time and sense. 

We talk about doing our duty, about doing right, 
about doing as well as we know how ; but what do 
we mean by all this ? What is duty ? What is right ? 
What is the moral standard toward which we are striv- 
ing within the limits of our knowledge of its demands ? 

All our well-defined ideas of duty and of right are 
derived from the character and teachings of Jesus 
Christ. It is true that long before his day there were 
moral laws and standards of right and duty, recog- 
nized among many of the nations of earth, or laid 
down in the sacred books of the ages ; but not until 
Jesus made clear the fuller meaning of the precepts 
that ought to be binding upon the consciences of 
men, and pointed out the errors that had blinded the 
moral sight of mankind, was there known to the world 
a fixed standard of duty, Godward and manward. 
Not until then was there a given standard of right, to 
be accepted more and more generally by all proper- 
thinking and well-disposed persons everywhere, in the 
progress of the world's advancement. 

Until Jesus Christ appeared, there was, at the best, 
only a foreshadowing of the good things that have 
been realized in him. Since his appearance, the high- 
est attainment, personal or social, reached or reached 
after by men, can not transcend that attainment which 
Jesus exhibited, and which Jesus enjoined on all. 



1 90 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Whatever may be your view of the development 
of the human race, or of human thought, it can not 
fairly be a question with you, that suddenly, almost 
two thousand years ago, in an out-of-the-way portion 
of the earth, and from among a people of restricted 
religious opinions, there appeared a world-teacher of 
morals and religion, who stands to-day, even in the 
light of nineteen added centuries of progress under 
the impulse of his own best teachings, a faultless 
teacher and a model guide ; so that when even unbe- 
lieving fancy would picture an ideal morality, it can 
suggest nothing better than the pattern life which 
Jesus lived on earth. 

You can find good in the moral teachings of the 
ancient Egyptians, of the sages of Assyria and China 
and India, and of the philosophers of Greece and 
Rome ; but no one of you can say that those teach- 
ings are unmixed with error, or that their standards 
are uniformly those which you deem the correct one. 
On the other hand, no one of you will claim that he 
recognizes a flaw in the moral teachings of Jesus, or 
that he can conceive to-day of a higher standard of 
duty than Jesus held, and holds, before men. Nor 
can you say that such a standard is to be found else- 
where in all the earth, even in the teachings of the 
Hebrew Scriptures — as those teachings were inter- 
preted and applied before the coming of Jesus. 

So it is that all our knowledge of personal and social 
duty centers in, or is derived from, the teachings and 
the example of Jesus Christ. " God, having of old 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 191 

time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers 
portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of 
these days spoken unto us in his Son" (Heb. i : 1-2) ; 
and thus it has come to pass that in moral and reH- 
gious knowledge "the head of every man is Christ" 

It is not that every man who strives to do his duty, 
or who is, in matters of morality, doing as well as he 
knows how, is conscious of the fact that he is so far 
heeding the counsel of Jesus ; but it is that all our 
modern best ideas of right and duty are derived 
directly from Jesus Christ. Our ideas of duty in 
the treatment of children, in the life we live in the 
family, in our social intercourse with our fellows, in 
our business relations with others, in our ministry to 
or in our provisions for the poor and the sick and the 
insane and the criminal, and even in our recognition 
of the rights of the brute creation, as well as in our 
attitude toward the government which is over us, — all, 
all are shaped and directed by the specific teachings 
of Jesus. 

See how it was, for example, in the matter of the 
parental care of children before the teachings of 
Jesus were the recognized moral standard of the more 
civilized nations of the world ! Among the Greeks 
and Romans, when those peoples led the world's best 
thinking and doing, a new-bom child had no right to 
live save by its human father's special consent as an 
act of grace. The infant was brought at its birth and 
laid at its father's feet. If the father stooped and 
took the child in his arms, the babe might live and be 



192 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

reared at that father's expense. Otherwise it would 
be killed or left to perish. 

Jesus, at his coming, took into his arms a little 
child, and made it the example and the charge of 
those who would show their love for him. "Whoso- 
ever . . . shall humble himself as this little child, the 
same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven," he 
said. "And whoso shall receive one such Httle child 
in my name receive th me" (comp. Matt. 18 : 2-5 and 
Mark 9 : 36, 37). That act and those words of Jesus 
were the turning point in the world's estimate of child- 
hood. And now when, at the baptism of little children, 
the father takes the tender babe in his arms and pre- 
sents him at the Lord's altar, there is a survival of the 
old pagan custom, with its Christianized aspect, as the 
father says, symbolically, " This child shall live, and 
shall be reared for Jesus." 

So it is in every sphere of personal and social life. 
All true progress has been made, and is making, in 
the direction, and under the direction, of Christian 
teachings, just so far as Christian teachings are the 
teachings of Christ. James Russell Lowell, who 
would hardly be deemed a religious bigot, summed 
the truth in this whole matter, so far, when he said, 
in a public address in England not very long before 
his death : " When the microscopic search of skepti- 
cism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the 
seas to disprove the existence of a Creater, has turned 
its attention to human society, and has found a place 
in this planet where a decent man can live in decency, 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 193 

comfort, and security, supporting and educating his 
children unspoiled and unpolluted ; a place where age 
is reverenced, manhood respected, womanhood hon- 
ored, and human life held in due regard ; when skeptics 
can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, 
where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared 
the way and laid the foundations and made decency 
and security possible, it will then be in order for the 
skeptical literate to move thither, and there ventilate 
their views." 

Not long after Mr. Lowell said that, I heard Pro- 
fessor Drummond, the Scotch scientist, who has been 
a world-wide traveler and a careful student of the 
observations of others, quote these words, and say in 
addition that, if any one could show him such a field 
of ten miles square anywhere on earth, he would sur- 
render his belief in Christianity as the world's only 
hope of true uplifting in knowledge and morals. 

Is it not then specifically true ''that the head of 
every man is Christ " in the realm of true moral and 
religious knowledge ? Whether he realizes it or not, 
he who does, or who strives to do, as well as he 
knows how, is a far-off follower of Jesus, walking in 
the path of duty which Jesus first made clear. He is 
moving in the right direction, even though he is not 
moving as surely or as intelligently as he should 
move. Being out of Christ, he is, however, in the 
truest sense, *'out of his head ;" for only as a man 
recognizes the headship of Christ can he fully know 
his duty, his privileges, his possibilities, his destiny. 



1 94 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Recognizing that headship, and conforming himself 
to it, the path of completed knowledge is fairly open 
before a man. 

Jesus says to each and all of us, "If ye abide in 
my word [having accepted my headship], then are ye 
truly my disciples ; and ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free" (John 8 : 31, 32). 

2, Moreover, " / would have you know, that the head 
of every man is Christ^' in the sphere of that peace of 
mind which alone gives comfort, and secures the highest 
power, to any man in the struggles and endurances of 
his daily life on earth. 

Knowing what is right does not in itself give peace 
of mind to a man. More often it is a cause of added 
unrest to him. He who knows what is right and does 
not do it, is farther from peace than if he had no 
knowledge of the right He who lives wholly for 
himself, is never satisfied with himself He who seeks 
pleasure as the end of his living, never finds pleasure 
unalloyed. He who would avoid disquiet of mind by 
turning away from all serious thought, and finding for- 
getfulness of God in indulgence of sin, can never turn 
away from the consciousness that he ought to be better, 
nor forget that there is an aim in life worthier of him 
than the aim he is pursuing. 

Said a young man to me, who had been living a 
wild life of selfish pleasure-seeking : " No one but 
God knew how much I suffered, while I seemed to be 
always having *a good time.' I've gone home long 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 195 

after midnight, night after night, and as I crept softly 
upstairs toward my bedroom, I've seen the Hght 
streaming out from under my mother's door, and I've 
heard her low, sobbing voice in prayer, and I knew she 
was kept awake praying for me. Then I've gone up 
into my room and thrown myself on my bed, and 
cried as if my heart would break. I've wished I was 
dead ; but I've lived, — lived to do the same thing over 
again with the same result And that's the life I 
lived for years. I tell you there is no comfort to the 
man who keeps on doing wrong when he knows he 
ought to do better ! " 

At the best, as God's word assures us, ''The wicked 
are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest. . . . 
There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked" 
(Isa. 57 • 20, 21). 

Nor does trying to do as well as one knows how 
secure peace of mind in every instance ; for, as a rule, 
such trying is not a success according to the man's 
own estimate of his doing. Trying to do well is a 
praiseworthy endeavor, but God has set before every 
man an ideal that is higher than his own best per- 
formance, and a man can never stand complete before 
God in a sense of his own real merit. Many a man 
who lives an upright life in personal morals, and whose 
heart is full of kindly purposes toward his fellows, 
lacks that feeling of restful peace which is the posses- 
sion of him who knows that he is Christ's, and that 
Christ is his, and that in his well-doing as in his short- 
coming he is loved of God as one for whom Jesus 



196 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

lived and died, and for whom Christ hves, and whom 
Christ loves. 

Not even a purpose of being a Christian, nor the 
belief that one is a Christian, nor the knowledge 
that one is a consistent member of a Christian 
church, can give peace of mind to one who longs 
for peace. '' I would have you know, that the head 
of every man is Christ;'' not holy purposes, not a 
rich religious experience, not a formal church-mem- 
bership, but Christ. ''The head of every man is 
Christ ; " and only he of whom Christ is the head and 
balance, and who trusts himself wholly to the wise 
and loving headship of Christ, can have peace ; that 
peace ''which passeth all understanding," and which 
abideth forever. 

Peace comes to the believer in Jesus, not through 
what the man does, nor through what the man is, but 
through a sense of what Jesus is in himself, and of 
what Jesus is to every man who trusts himself to him. 
Peace is found by looking away from one's self, away 
from one's merits, away from one's lack, and at Christ 
as he is, and in his attitude toward the sinner. One 
may be conscious of great imperfections, of pitiable 
weakness ; he may be perplexed with doubts about 
his purposes and motives ; he maybe beset by peculiar 
temptations, and sore-tried with afflictions and be- 
reavements ; but if he fixes his gaze on Christ in whom 
all fulness dwells (Col. i : 19), and realizes that all that 
Christ is, and all that Christ has, is shared by Christ 
with every soul that accepts his headship, peace of 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 197 

mind must be a result of such gazing and such real- 
izing (Rom. 8 : 16, 17; Gal. 4 : 7). 

Peace comes from realizing that Christ is our Head^ 
and not from believing that Christ is merely our 
Helper. A young Christian who had been in army 
service for a time, and who was now in the struggle 
for business success, said to me half regretfully one 
day: "I never have had sMoh peace as I had in war- 
time. Then I was always under orders, and I accepted 
the state of things. Every morning the sergeant told 
me just what to do, and I did it. One morning it was 
'drill,' another it was 'fatigue,' another it was 'polic- 
ing,' another it was 'fall in for a march.' It was all 
laid out for me, and I had nothing to do but to obey. 
But now I'm in a worry to know just what I ought to 
do in the work which I've undertaken." The real 
difference with that young man in war-time and in 
time of peace was that in the one case he realized 
that he was under a competent head, while in the 
other case he wanted to be his own head. 

"Ye call me Master, and, Lord," says Jesus : " and 
ye say well ; for so I am " (John 13 : 13). He who 
recognizes Christ as Lord and Master and Head, can 
be told day by day just what to do or just what to 
endure in the day before him, and he can find peace 
in doing and enduring accordingly. 

There are many believers in Jesus who enjoy peace 
in the consciousness of his headship, while they are 
in the army or w^hile they are in business, while they 
are prospered or while they are afflicted. Their con- 



198 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

dition has nothing to do with giving them peace, or 
with keeping peace from them. Their peace is wholly 
the result of their accepting Christ as their head. I 
wish I could give you even the faintest glimpse of all 
that I have seen of this peace of mind which Christ 
secures to those who trust him. 

I knew, at the same time, two believers in Jesus 
who had the fullest measure of peace in his headship. 
One of them probably never had a hundred dollars 
at a time. His whole life was given to Christ, and he 
literally lived from hand to mouth in Christ's service. 
His face was all aglow with joy as he told me of 
Christ's unvarying goodness to him. '* Dear Saviour," 
he said, '' he does everything for me. I haven't a 
single unsatisfied want in this world." The other be- 
liever was rich in this world's goods. His property 
counted up into the millions. He had come into the 
service of Christ after the middle of life, but he had 
accepted Christ as his head, and now he and all that 
he had belonged to Christ Day by day he was ask- 
ing Jesus what he might do for him, and he was doing 
as Jesus directed. The light of Christ's love was in 
his face as he said to me one day, ** I feel that I've 
wasted so much time in living out of Christ that I 
don't want to waste another minute, now that I'm in 
his loving service." 

One of these believers had learned how to be 
empty, and the other how to be full, in Christ's service 
(Phil. 4 : 12), and both of them had learned the pre- 
ciousness of peace through having Christ as their head. 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 1 99 

And so among the poor and the rich, among the 
infirm and the bereaved and the disappointed and the 
betrayed, as well as among those who knew little of 
earth's severest trials, I have seen, as you have seen, 
those who had realized in their own experience the 
fulness of Christ's words to his disciples : "Peace I 
leave with you ; my peace I give unto you : not as 
the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your 
heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful " (John 
14 : 27). 

And the truth of those words may be realized by 
any one of you who will lay hold of them and make 
them your own to-day. 

J. " / woidd have you know, that the head of every 
man is Christ'' in the realm of life, — the life that is 
and the life that is to come, — life temporal and life 
eternal. 

Our mortal life is a dying life, and is a life marred 
and hindered by sin all its way deathward. All of us 
want something better than this life, something more 
than this life ; and just in proportion as we lack an 
intelligent and reasonable hope of something more 
and better, are we liable to be tossed in bewilderment 
between doubt and despair. 

It is not because of any peculiarity of our early 
theological training — as some would have us suppose 
— that we have this unrest, and this dissatisfaction 
with the life that mere nature offers us, in the present 
condition of nature's strugglings with that form of 



200 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

evil which we call sin. In all ages and everywhere 
the trouble has been much the same. 

The choicest wisdom of the classic philosophies of 
ancient Greece and Rome went no farther than to 
seek out the best use of a fleeting life that was on the 
face of it a seeming failure. The Hebrew sage who 
had tested for himself the gain of pleasure and wealth 
and power and learning, could only characterize all 
that which nature unillumined from without could 
give, as ''vanity and a striving after wind" (Eccl. 
2 : 26). And to-day, outside of the realm of Chris- 
tianity, millions upon millions of aching hearts accept 
Booddhism as their religion, because Booddhism holds 
before them the hopeless task of practical annihila- 
tion, with a final end to living and striving and suffer- 
ing and enduring. 

In fact, apart from the teachings of Jesus Christ, 
there neither is, nor ever has there been, any proffer 
to man of joy and triumph in the life that is, and of 
added joy in life prolonged beyond the present. He 
who studies the various religions of the world, ancient 
and modern, realizes that it is a literal truth that there 
is not '* any other name under heaven, that is given 
[or that has been given] among men" (Acts 4 : 12), 
wherein is salvation, — in a new and abiding life, — or 
wherein is even a promise of salvation, except the 
name of Jesus Christ. And he who studies the ways 
of men's thinkings and hopings to-day, realizes that 
there is no well-defined and intelligent hope by any- 
body of true and endless life, save as that hope is 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 201 

based on the teachings and assurances — direct or per- 
verted — of Jesus Christ. 

But Jesus Christ does proffer hfe, Hfe in all fulness 
and in all joy, — life now and life forevermore, — to 
every man who trustfully accepts him as the one 
source and the one giver of life. Jesus Christ does 
say, explicitly and emphatically: **He that believeth 
on me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
liveth and believeth on me shall never die " (John 
II : 25, 26). And more than sixty generations of 
believers have put that assurance of Jesus to the test, 
and have found it true. 

Sin and death are facts ; and even though we can 
not explain their presence in the world, we have to 
admit that they are here, and that their relation is 
as that of cause and effect ; or that, as the Bible ex- 
presses it, ''The wages of sin " — the price paid for sin- 
ning — *'is death" (Rom. 6:23). We see, and we 
can not deny it, that somehow in consequence of 
this state of things, in which "■ the whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth " (Rom. 8:22) in the pain 
of sin, every man is in a dying state. Similarly, new 
life in Christ, salvation from sin and death, through 
trusting Christ, is a fact ; and its presence in this 
world must be admitted by us, whether we can ex- 
plain it or not. Just so surely as we can see before 
us the proofs that "the wages of sin is death," just 
so surely can we see the multiplied and sufficient 
proofs that "the free gift of God is eternal life in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6 : 23). 



202 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

As, on the lower plane of physical life, it is shown 
— mystery though it be at best — that the blood, or 
life, of a hale and strong man can be made to pass 
from his opened arteries into those of the weak and 
dying one, carrying new and vigorous life in its trans- 
fusion, so it is shown on the higher plane of the more 
mysterious but equally real spiritual life of man, that 
the blood, or life, of Jesus Christ can bring new and 
permanent life into the dying human nature of him 
who opens his being to its reception by faith. No fact 
in all the universe has fuller attestation as a fact than 
this. Every one of you here before me now is already 
a witness to its truth in your personal experience, or 
can be competent to be so to-day. 

The life that Christ gives to those who trust him is 
not a life that has its beginning when this mortal life 
has ended, but it is a life that shows itself in fulness 
now and here, with a promise of larger fulness here- 
after. It is bounding life for the present, with abound- 
ing life for the future. ** To me," says its possessor, 
**to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil, i : 21). 
"He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life" 
(John 3 : 36), says John the Baptist ; not by and by 
he sJiall have, but now he *' hath eternal life." 
Jesus Christ reaffirms this declaration in the earnest 
words : ** Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that 
heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, 
hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but 
hath passed out of death into life " (John 5 : 24). 
And the signs of the Christ-life in a man are visible 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 203 

in its possessor's personality at all times and every- 
where. 

The best student-athletes in our American colleges, 
as in the English and Scotch universities, at the pres- 
ent time, are young men who stand "complete" in 
Christ (Col. 2 : 10). There is no feminine grace or 
loveliness that by itself can compare with that womanly 
beauty which has its crowning perfection in the Christ- 
like spirit, giving added tenderness and fuller sympa- 
thy and gentler winsomeness to the look of the eye, 
to the tone of the voice, and to every movement of 
the hand or form. There is no possibility of such in- 
tellectual attainment and efficiency without the Christ- 
life as with it. No profession or occupation or em- 
ployment can be honored at its best except by him 
who, with all his special fitness for his special work, 
can say in simple-hearted sincerity, "■ I live ; and yet 
no longer I, but Christ liveth in me : and that life 
which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith 
which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave 
himself up for me" (Gal. 2 : 20). 

But it is when this mortal life is failing that the im- 
mortal life which Christ has given asserts itself yet 
more convincingly to the outside observer, so that 
often in the hour which we call the hour of death the 
outer face of the dying one is transfigured in the light 
of the undying spirit within, and the failing tones of 
his earthly voice catch the sweetness of the heavenly 
sounds which are already vibrating on his spiritual 
ears. This exhibit of life in death is more than resig- 



204 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

nation, it is more than peace, it is more than hope ; 
it is the conscious joy of union with Christ ; it is the 
fuller sense of that eternal life which is the free gift of 
God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Among the brightest life-pictures which hang in the 
galleries of my memory to-day are the faces of those 
who lived the Christ-life, and who gave proof of their 
immortal life in their dying hour. And some of these 
faces stand out in added beauty because of the very 
shadows which were over them in the years when life 
is ordinarily at its sunniest. I recall one such, the face 
of an aged man who was born a deaf-mute so long 
ago that he was already too far on in mature life to be 
capable of learning how to read and spell when the 
mode of instruction for the deaf and dumb was intro- 
duced into this countiy. 

The best he could do was to learn the more primi- 
tive system of natural signs in the use of his hands 
and eyes. But by that means he was taught of Jesus ; 
and with all his heart, in childlike simplicity of 
trust, he believed on Jesus, and had life from him ac- 
cordingly. Separated from home, and living mostly 
among strangers, with the bare necessaries of life se- 
cured to him, he had little of that which we deem es- 
sential to human happiness ; but his life was hid with 
Christ in God, and he toiled and endured uncomplain- 
ingly until past three-score years and ten, — and then it 
was that I saw him last. 

Being in the village where was his home, and hear- 
ing of an accident that had happened to him, I went 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 205 

to see him. It was a lowly home that he was in. His 
bedroom was close under the roof, in the sweltering 
heat of midsummer. In his weakness of age he had 
missed his footing, in climbing up the dark stairway 
to his room, and had fallen, breaking his right arm, 
which was to him both arm and tongue. There, on 
his bed, in the loneliness of his suffocating roof- 
chamber, I found him breathing his earthly life 
away. 

When he saw me, and recognized me as one who 
could communicate with him, his aged face lighted up 
with pleasure ; and as I made signs to him that I was 
very, very sorry to find him so disabled, he replied by 
signs as well as he could, saying that God was very 
good to him, and that Christ had been with him all 
the time, helping him to bear whatever he had to bear. 

** If God wants me to lie here a while longer," he 
said, ** I will wait here patiently. But if," and as he 
made this sign the life that was in his aged form was 
all aglow in his transfigured face, ** if Christ will let 
me pass out from here, I will fly away and be forever 
with him." 

And as he made these signs I "saw his face as it had 
been the face of an angel" (Acts 6: 15), and I real- 
ized that his dying life was already a foretaste of that 
life beyond, where " the eyes of the blind shall be 
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped ; " 
where " the lame man [shall] leap as an hart, and the 
tongue of the dumb shall sing ; " where "they shall ob- 
tain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee 



2o6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

away" (Isa. 35 : 5, 6, 10). And if, indeed, there were 
only the memory of that one face of Hfe in death in all 
my life's experiences, I should never have a doubt that 
Christ had come into this world in order that those 
who trust him *' may have life, and may have it abun- 
dantly " (John 10: 10). And how much more of such 
evidence as this there is in my memory, and in all our 
memories ! 

Life, peace, knowledge ; knowledge, peace, life ; 
all these are in Christ, and all these Christ brings to all 
who will accept them by accepting him. Yox '* I 
would have you know, that the head of every ma7i is 
Christ " — of every man who will receive Christ as his 
head, as Christ comes offering to be a head to the 
headless, — to give knowledge and peace and life to 
those who lack them all. 

If, indeed, there be one thing stranger in all the 
world than the fact that Christ proffers himself with all 
these good gifts to every man, it is the other fact that 
any man refuses to accept the proffered Christ, as he 
comes with these proffered gifts. The gifts them- 
selves would seem to be at least worth the taking ; 
but the Christ who brings them ought surely to be 
welcome for what he is, and for what he has done for 
men. Apart from the question of personal gain 
through receiving him, there Is the question of per- 
sonal gratitude to him, in the memory of the love that 
he showed for us, while he was fitting himself to be 
our Saviour and our Head. 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 207 

Let me tell to you an incident out of my long-ago 
soldier life, as illustrative — even though in only the 
faintest manner — of the relation toward us of this 
loving Saviour, and of the spirit that ought to actuate 
us in our welcome to him as he comes to proffer him- 
self anew to us. 

It was in the midsummer of 1 863 that I was a pris- 
oner of war in Charleston, South Carolina. Coming 
under the suspicion of being a spy, in consequence of 
an incident in connection with a visit through the 
lines, under a flag of truce, in North Carolina the 
year before, I was separated from my prison comrades 
of the Union army, and was shut up in the common 
jail among murderers and desperadoes and other crim- 
inals of the vilest class from the streets of Charleston 
in the worst days of the Southern Confederacy. 

The condition of things on our side seemed dark at 
the best at the time of my capture. Battles had 
gone against us. Generals had disappointed us. At 
our latest news from the North, Gettysburg still hung 
in the balance. I had heard cheers in the streets of 
Charleston over the riots in New York City, as I was 
brought toward the jail. To be a prisoner at such a 
time, with the gallows confronting me, and not a 
human being to give me a word or a look of sym- 
pathy, was, you will believe, to be in despondency, if 
not in despair — so far as concerned the earthly out- 
look. 

But oh, the scene in that common jail and gathering 
place of criminals, where I was a prisoner ! I have 



2o8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

never had such a gHmpse of the bottomless pit as 
there. The air itself was stifling, in the foulness of 
those close-shut and heated wards. But the moral 
atmosphere was fouler and more stifling still. Blas- 
phemy and obscene speech poured out unceasingly 
from the lips of demon-like men, who glared and 
wrangled and struggled in that seething mass of sin- 
cursed humanity. Occasionally the cry of " Murder " 
centered all attention for the moment on ruffians who 
were roUing on the floor in the angiy clutch of deadly 
hatred, and the strong arms of other ruffians were 
taxed in separating the bitter combatants. And all 
the while the air seemed fouler and fouler, and the 
place itself more suffocating and intolerable. 

Shrinking from the encircling pollution which 
pressed upon me at every turn, I found my way into 
one of the cells opening into the court, or corridor, 
where the multitude thronged and swayed, and there 
I clambered up on to the stone window-bench before 
one ot the barred openings through the heavy walls 
of the jail, and drawing up my knees so as to keep 
within the recess of the narrow opening, I bowed my 
head on those knees and gave way to my feelings in 
the utter weakness of despair. 

I had not lost my faith in God, but I could find no 
joy in such a life as opened to me — or as shut in 
about me — there. I did not want to live any longer. 
I could not live any longer as I was. Even if it must 
be to the gallows that I should go — anywhere, any- 
where, out of that hell upon earth ! 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 209 

And just then it was, as I huddled there in that jail 
window recess, with my face pressed against my 
drawn-up knees, that I was touched gently on the 
shoulder, and a kindly voice said to me, " You seem 
troubled, my friend. Maybe you're hungry. Cheer 
up. Here is some bread." I looked up, as much 
surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken to me, 
and there just below me was the winsome face of a 
young man who seemed all unlike the other inmates 
of that place of horrors, who was reaching up to me 
a loaf of soft, white bread. 

" Thank you, thank you," I said, instinctively. "It's 
not bread I'm wanting." ** Oh, but you look hungry," 
he added. ''You'll want it by and by. It's good 
bread." And he laid the loaf on my knees, and 
turned away into the seething throng, out of my sight 
again. 

It was good bread, a baker's loaf, in marked con- 
trast with our coarse cornmeal prison fare ; but that 
was not what I was longing for. I was, indeed, hun- 
gry. God grant that no one of you may ever be so 
hungry as I was then ! Hungry, but not for bread. 
Hungry for human sympathy, and for just such words 
and looks of loving cheer as that brother-man had 
now brought me. 

As he disappeared into the crowd, I felt that a 
crushing weight had been lifted from me. I drew a 
long, full, free breath again. I dropped myself off 
from that window-bench and stood erect. I was a 
different man from a moment before. I was in a dif- 



2 1 o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

ferent place. The air seemed purer. The very walls 
of the gloomy jail had moved outward. Its low ceil- 
ing had been lifted higher. The whole world was 
another world to me. I did not want to die. I was 
glad I was alive, and life was worth living. And all 
because of that strange man's strange coming to me. 

I turned after him. Pushing through the crowd 
with a new purpose of life, I pressed on until I found 
him. Laying my hand on his shoulder, I said, ** Look 
here, my friend ! Who are you ? How came you 
here ? " Not knowing who I was, — whether Union or 
Rebel, — he answered cheerily: "Oh, I'm a Yankee 
soldier. I'm from away up in Connecticut ; but I'm 
fast down here now." You will believe that that 
answer brought us only nearer together. I learned 
that he also was under suspicion as a spy; but he 
had been longer in that place than I had been, and 
had better adapted himself to his condition. He was, 
moreover, a true-hearted disciple of Jesus, and, seeing 
me in my apparent need, he had come to me, with 
the love of Christ in his heart and a loaf of bread in 
his hand, and, while I was hungiy and sick and in 
prison, he had ministered unto me, — God bless him ! 

In a little time I was out from that gloomy jail, and 
was with my fellow-prisoners of the Union army, first 
in Columbia and afterward at the *'Libby." He who 
had brought me to new life and hope there was taken 
first to Salisbury, then to Belle Island, and after 
that to Andersonville. I saw him no more during the 
weary, dragging days of the war. 



Importance of a Head to a Soldier 2 1 1 

Years went by. The war was over. I was again 
with my home loved ones. One summer evening, as 
I was in my front hallway, my home door-bell rang. 
As I opened the door myself, being near it, there 
stood that man who had been so much to me in that 
gloomiest hour of my life in Charleston jail. One 
glimpse was sufficient. The past was again the pres- 
ent, to my mind. 

What do you think I did ? Shut the door in his 
face, and left him standing outside ? Do you think I 
did that ? Would you hear me with patience for 
another moment, if you knew I had done that ? Do 
you doubt that in an instant my arms were about him, 
with a ciy of glad and grateful welcome, and that the 
next minute my home dear ones were called together 
to give added welcome to this man to whom they and 
I, in a sense, owed everything ? No, you do not 
doubt that I did just vAv^t you would have done in 
just such circumstances. 

One who did infinitely more for every one of you 
than that man did for me in Charleston jail, is saying 
at this very moment : " Behold, I stand at the door 
and knock : if any man hear my voice and open the 
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
and he with me " (Rev. 3 : 20). Will any one of you 
keep the door of your heart longer closed against His 
incoming? 



DANGER OF COUNTING CONSCIENCE 
A SAFE GUIDE 



IX 



DANGER OF COUNTING CONSCIENCE 
A SAFE GUIDE 

It was long before our Civil War, in the intense and 
bitter political conflicts between advocates of slavery 
and of its emancipation, that I first came to realize 
that a man was not sure to be doing right or thinking 
right when he was acting conscientiously. Then, on 
considering the matter more carefully, and observing 
my fellows far and near, I was confident that among 
the worst evil-doers in the world were those who were 
doing wrong conscientiously. 

Men will lie, will steal, will pass counterfeit money, 
will hate their fellows, will commit murder, will do any 
and every vile and infamous thing that can be imag- 
ined, with full confidence that it is their duty to do 
so. I began to ask myself whether the common 
idea is a correct one, that man has a safe guide in his 
conscience. As I sought to find the truth brought out 
in books of ethics and moral philosophy, I gained 
little help or light from them. As I turned afresh to 
the Bible in my dilemma, I found that in this, as in so 
many things else, the Bible and many books on Chris- 
tian ethics were at variance. 

215 



2 1 6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

And thus I came to write and preach this sermon 
on "moral color-bHndness," or being misled to our 
ruin by doing evil conscientiously. It was just after 
I had first preached this sermon that a new book on 
ethics appeared, written by President E. G. Robinson, 
of Brown University, in which he agreed with the 
Bible, although not with most books of Christian phil- 
osophy, in claiming that man is not given by nature a 
safe and sure guide to show him what is right in con- 
duct and morals. 

Thus finding the Bible re-enforced by at least one 
book of more modern ethics, I was encouraged to 
preach God's truth, despite popular religious opinion, 
on the subject of "Conscience." This sermon I 
preached at the Payson Church in Easthampton, 
Massachusetts, before the students of Williston Sem- 
inary ; again in the chapel of Amherst College, and in 
the chapel of the Agricultural College at Amherst. 
Yet again I preached it at Northfield, at the opening 
of an annual session of the World's Student Confer- 
ence in Mr. Moody's day, and I was glad thus to 
bring its important truth before so many young Chris- 
tian workers. 



MORAL COLOR-BLINDNESS 

Look therefore whether the light that is in thee be 
not darkness'' (Luke ii : 35). 

A great deal is said in our day about " color-blind- 
ness," especially in its bearing upon the efficiency and 
trustworthiness of railroad men. It has been found, 
by means of careful experiments, that from two persons 
to two hundred in every one thousand are unable to 
distinguish clearly one color from another, — some per- 
sons being so totally blind to color as to see no differ- 
ence between a strawberry and its leaf, except in 
form ; others being confused over the varying shades 
of colors which they recognize as not identical. 

Inasmuch as the danger-signal on railroad tracks 
by night is a red light, it is obviously of prime im- 
portance that an engine-driver or a switchman should 
be able to distinguish red from white or green, for a 
mistake at this point might hurl a train-load of pas- 
sengers to destruction. And the perils from color- 
blindness are largely increased by the fact that those 
who are afflicted with it are likely to count their sight 
as good as anybody's, unless the plain truth of the 
matter is in some way forced upon them from outside 
sources. 

217 



2 1 8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Hence it is that our great railroad companies have 
latterly been in the habit of testing the vision of their 
employees, at the hands of skilled oculists, finding in 
some cases that from ten to twenty-five per cent of all 
their engine-drivers and signal-men were at fault in 
color-judging. In view of these facts the warning cry 
has been reiterated by the public press and by the 
traveling public in the ears of railroad managers every- 
where, until it could not but be heard : "Beware of 
color-blindness ! See to it that the men who guide 
your trains know light from darkness, know red from 
yellow and green ! " 

And on a higher plane, and in a more important 
sphere, this warning is the cry of the text I have 
chosen for our evening's gathering at the opening of 
this Students' Conference for Bible study : ** Look 
therefore whether the light that is in thee be not 
darkness" ! Beware of moral color-blindness ! 

The words of our text are the words of our Lord 
Jesus, — of him who never sounded a needless alarm, 
and whose warnings have always more meaning than 
their surface-appearing. He is speaking of the eye 
as the avenue of light from without to the soul within, 
and of the importance of keeping this window of the 
soul transparent and unblurred. **When thine eye is 
single," undivided as a light- transmitter, he says, 
*' thy whole body also is full of light ; but when it 
[the eye] is evil [untrustworthy through its blurring], 
thy body also is full of darkness " (Luke 1 1 : 34). 
And then, as another evangelist reports it, our Lord 



Conscience' not a Safe Guide 219 

adds, in recognition of the danger of such a state of 
things, " If therefore the hght that is in thee be 
darkness, how great is the darkness ! " (Matt. 6 : 23.) 
What perils are before a soul, on its life-track, when 
that soul is morally color-blind ! 

But you may be prompted at once to ask, Does not a 
man know by nature the difference between right and 
wrong ? Has not God given to every man, in what we 
call **the conscience," a sure test of moral light and 
moral darkness ? No ! most decidedly, no ! Man does 
not by nature know what is right and what is wrong. 
" Conscience " is not in and of itself a safe guide in 
morals. It is not enough for a man to do '* as well 
as he knows how," and in so doing *' to have a con- 
science void of offence toward God and men alway." 
He may do all this, and yet be sadly wrong. If he 
is morally color-blind, a man is likely to be wrong — 
conscientiously. 

That faculty or element in our nature which we 
call " conscience " is set within us as a monitor^ not as 
a teacher, in the school of morals. Conscience tells 
us that we ought to do right, but conscience does not 
tell us what is right. Conscience lays down no law 
for us to observe, but it reminds us faithfully to ob- 
serve the law as it has been laid down before us. 

Instruction in the letter and spirit of God's law 
must come to us from without, before conscience can 
help to hold us to that law. "The lamp of thy body 
is thine eye " (Luke 11:34). To begin with, the law 
is outside of the body and the conscience is inside ; 



2 20 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

hence it is that so much depends on the clearness of 
the eye, as a means of Hght, in bringing conscience 
and the law together. "Howbeit, I had not known 
sin, except through the law," says Paul: ''for I had 
not known coveting, except the law had said. Thou 
shalt not covet" (Rom. 7 : 7). Mark you, Paul does 
not say there would have been no sin except for the 
law ; but that he would never have known sin to be 
sin, from his uninstructed conscience. And Paul's 
conscience was fully up to the average standard at 
the start. 

Who supposes that Abraham or Jacob knew by 
nature that it was wrong to lie? Who believes that 
their consciences reproached them for having more 
wives than one? Jesus declared that the time would 
come when those who killed his followers would think, 
in their moral color-blindness, that they were offering 
service unto God (John 16 : 2). And Paul testified of 
himself, as an aforetime opposer of Jesus: ''I verily 
thought with myself, that I ought to do many things 
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 
26 : 9). 

When a heaven-sent light flashed into Paul's eyes, 
on his way to Damascus, he had a new understanding 
of the truth in Jesus ; and from that time forward his 
conscience had a correct standard, so far, to conform 
to. His conscience had not changed ; but his know- 
ledge of the truth had. To be cured of his spiritual 
color-blindness cost Paul his entire eyesight for a sea- 
son ; and '' a stake in the flesh " was left with him for 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 221 

his lifetime. The cure of spiritual or moral color- 
blindness is often a severe operation, an operation 
from which both flesh and spirit recoil ; but there is 
no safety until it is accomplished. 

Our ancestors in this country, North as well as 
South, were as conscientious in slave-holding, in rum- 
making and rum-drinking, in lottery-running and in 
dueling, as they were in battling for political inde- 
pendence. Their consciences, meanwhile, were active 
enough ; the trouble was in their moral eyesight. 

It is said to be an authenticated fact, that godly old 
President Stiles, of Yale College, wrote a letter to a 
friend in the West Indies, proposing to send a hogs- 
head of New England rum in barter for an able-bodied 
negro slave. Still later, the Rev. Dr. Nathan Strong, 
pastor of my old home church in Hartford, was, as I 
have been told, the owner of a distillery while in the 
active pastorate. Not being so successful a distiller 
as he was pastor, he failed in the rum business, and 
a civil judgment was rendered against him accord- 
ingly. To evade the sheriff's execution, he was com- 
pelled to shut himself in the parsonage week-days for 
a series of weeks ; but when Sundays came he moved 
out in solemn dignity, with his cocked hat and knee- 
breeches, and passed across to the church to preach 
the gospel as usual. No civil process could disturb 
him on Sundays. His conscience does not seem to 
have disturbed him, on the distillery question, any day 
of the week. There are churches still standing, here 
in New England, which were built with the proceeds 



222 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of lotteries duly authorized for that sacred purpose, at 
the prayerful request of ministers and church-members. 

If our consciences work differently from the con- 
sciences of our fathers, on these points, it is because 
our moral eyesight has been trained to finer distinc- 
tions in color, under the treatment of those whom God 
has set to be spiritual oculists. 

Even now, and among ourselves, there are those 
who can not see the difference between red and yellow, 
or between black and white, on important moral ques- 
tions. Many whose moral eyesight is now clear as 
to the black and white, have a blur in their vision 
as to the yellow and red when they look at the civil 
rights of the Chinese or the Indian in our country. 
There are others who really believe that it is right to 
lie when a good purpose can be helped on by lying, 
or when lying seems a practical necessity. Men of 
wealth, or men of moderate means, do not always 
know when they are using their property faithfully and 
in wise prudence, as God's stewards, and when they 
are shutting their pockets and hearts against a call 
which they can not refuse without sinning. Signs of 
moral color-blindness or of imperfect moral vision are 
still to be seen by us on every side ; and mark you, 
also, they are still to be seen in us by those who test 
our knowledge of moral colors. 

Be it remembered, however, that a man's thinking 
he sees the truth aright does not shield him from the 
consequences of his error. Conscientious wrong- 
doing is never safe doing. " Look therefore," says 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 22 



J 



our text, '* whether the light which is in thee be not 
darkness"! And why look} Because in moral color- 
blindness there is moral peril, and you may be morally 
color-blind without knowing it. 

The Mosaic law declared : *' If any one sin, and do 
any of the things which the Lord hath commanded 
not to be done ; though he knew it not, yet is he 
guilty, and shall bear his iniquity" (Lev. 5:17). 
The lips of the loving Jesus said also of the sinning 
servant : ** He that knew not, and did things worthy 
of stripes, shall be beaten" (Luke 12 : 48) — although 
with fewer stripes than the conscious transgressor. 
The divine law runs through the kingdom of both 
nature and grace. "Whatsoever a man soweth," — 
not what he thinks he sows, not what he purposes to 
sow, but what he actually does sow, — ** that shall he 
also reap " (Gal. 6 : 7). 

If a color-blind engine-driver mistakes a red signal 
for a white one at an open drawbridge, the resulting 
calamity is as terrible to the train-load of passengers 
as if he had deliberately defied a token of danger 
which he read correctly. If one violates the civil law 
unconsciously, he is not exempt from legal penalties 
because of his false sense of security. If a man has 
bought stolen goods without knowing it, their real 
owner can reclaim those goods at the holder's cost. 
If there is a flaw in the title of a man's homestead, 
the home-dweller can be driven from that home mer- 
cilessly. No matter what he paid for it ; no matter 
how much he is attached to it ; no matter how neces- 



2 24 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

sary it is to the comfort or the safety of himself or 
of his family, — if his title is not sound he must leave 
it ; he must go out, it may be, into the cold world, 
unsheltered and homeless. His color-blindness in 
reading the title does not make the false title a true 
one. 

Nor is one's danger of misreading the signals along 
his personal life-course, of misconceiving the ethical 
requirements of the law to which he owes obedience, 
or of mistaking the value of his homestead title-deeds, 
any less in the moral world than it is in the material 
world. It is the gentle-spirited Cowper who empha- 
sizes this truth in his verse : 

" Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd. 
His ship half founder' d, and his compass lost, 
Sees, far as human optics may command, 
A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land ; 
Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies ; 
Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies ! 
Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes, 
His well-built systems, philosophic dreams ; 
Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell ! 
He reads his sentence at the flames of hell. 
Hard lot of man — to toil for his reward 
Of virtue, and yet lose it ! Wherefore hard ? — 

"He that would win the race must guide his horse 
Obedient to the customs of the course ; 
Else, though unequaled to the goal he flies, 
A meaner than himself shall gain the prize. 
Grace leads the right way ; if you choose the wrong. 
Take it — and perish." 

Ah ! there is a weight of meaning in the words of 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 225 

our Lord, ^' Look therefore whether the Hght that is 
in thee be not darkness." Look ! for a woe comes 
from mistaking the wrong for the right. "Woe unto 
them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put dark- 
ness for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter 
for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! Woe unto them that 
are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own 
sight! " (Isa. 5 : 20, 21) — but whose eyes are not sin- 
gle, and whose sight is not clear. 

It is a sad thing to be serving the Devil conscien- 
tiously ; to be a scoundrel, and not to suspect it ; to 
be dishonest, or unfaithful, or selfish, or vile, while 
thinking one's self honest and true, and generous and 
pure ; to be starting one's self or one's companions 
in the way of evil, without a thought of error or dan- 
ger, — a sad thing, I say, and as ruinous as it is sad. 

But just what is the cause of all this trouble ? and 
where is its cure ? If man does not know right and 
wrong by nature, if his conscience depends for its 
proper guidance on instruction from outside, how is it 
that he so often mistakes wrong for right ? and how 
can he know the true shades of distinction between 
right and wrong ? 

Men's consciences are at fault because of their re- 
ceiving wrong instruction, and of their being subjected 
to wrong influences. Every person does receive in- 
struction, and every person is influenced by his sur- 
roundings. Not every person, however, is rightly 
instructed or rightly influenced. Hence the wrong 
standards of conscience-judging. 



2 26 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

I knew of a young girl in New York City, born 
blind, who, until she was eight or ten years of age, 
and so long as I knew of her, was utterly ignorant of 
the fact that she was blind. Her parents had per- 
sistently kept from her the fact that she was different 
from other children. All her training had in view the 
concealment of this fact ; and as she had never seen^ 
she did not know what it was to see or not to see. 
She used freely the language of sight, with her own 
ideas of that language. She spoke of being glad to 
see those whom she met, and of being pleased with 
their looks ; of enjoying the sunlight, and the clear 
sky, and the fine scenery, when she went out after a 
storm had passed away. So little thought had she 
that she was walking in darkness, that on one occa- 
sion, when a stranger child spoke out pityingly, in her 
hearing, of her misfortune, she ran merrily to her 
parents and said, '* There's a little girl over there who 
says I am blind. I think I can see as well as ^//^ can." 

Is it strange that a child trained like that one should 
have wrong ideas — should conscientiously be in error 
— as to the differences between colors? There is a 
great deal of such training in the world of morals. 

Orientals are taught from infancy that lying to an 
enemy, or where anything can be made by lying, is a 
duty ; and they try to attend to that duty. American 
Indians are taught that a man's character is best rated 
by the scalps he can show ; so they risk their lives for 
scalps. The Dyaks of Borneo are taught that skulls 
are worthier trophies than scalps ; and they "■ hunt 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 227 

heads " accordingly. Our fathers were taught that 
human slavery was a divine institution, and that rum 
was to be swallowed gratefully as a "gift of God;" 
and they lived up to those teachings. How could it 
be that men's consciences would discern truth from 
error on points where their instruction had from the 
beginning been as much at fault as in these instances 
in the case of our fathers and others ? Is it not in- 
deed possible, if not probable, that in lesser points or 
in greater ones we also have been wrongly instructed 
on points of morals down to the present hour, and 
that this will be evident to those who come after us 
with better instruction than we have had ? 

Even if men are not explicitly taught that wrong 
is right, they are likely to infer that error is truth from 
the prevailing practices about them. The conscience 
of even the well-instructed man is, at the best, like a 
ship's compass ; not like the polar star, at which the 
compass is supposed to point. The compass is safe 
to steer by as long as its needle points where it ought 
to point; but the compass needle may be forcibly 
deflected from the pole, or it may be drawn aside 
by the metallic attractions, or by the meteorological 
influences of its surroundings, and then, of course, it 
is untrustworthy. 

Scotch ship-builders on the Clyde are accustomed 
to send their newly launched vessels fifty miles down 
into the open sea, in order to test their compasses 
away from the diverting attractions of the iron-stocked 
yards near their building. And, in crossing the At- 



2 28 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

lantic, our steamships have to calculate each day, and 
make allowance for the *' magnetic variations " of the 
compasses by which they steer. It would be well if 
all of us understood just how far from the true meri- 
dian our moral compass needles were deflected by the 
attractions of gold, or pleasure, or appetite, or ambi- 
tion, or love, or hatred, or by the social atmosphere 
of our immediate neighborhood. 

Out of all the choicer children of Judah who were 
prisoners in Babylon in the days of Daniel, young men 
who were ** skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in 
knowledge, and understanding science, and such as 
had ability to stand in the king's palace " (Dan. i : 4), 
there were only four who had independence and cour- 
age enough to choose for themselves what they should 
eat and drink, regardless of the habits and customs 
of the people among whom they lived ; and to prove 
in their own experience — as has been so often proven 
since — that water drunk in the path of duty is a safer 
drink than ** the native wines" of a wine-growing 
country drunk in accordance with the social demands 
of the region. 

Modern travelers commonly do not get half-way to 
Babylon before they conclude that it is more prudent 
to follow the example of the multitude, on the drink- 
ing question, than to stand out all by themselves, as 
did Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abed- 
nego ; and so they drink the light wines of the Euro- 
pean tables, as " everybody else does." And when 
they have come to that conclusion, they are in a good 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 229 

state to consider further whether it is wise to be cast 
into a den ofHons or a fiery furnace of invidious com- 
ment, rather than conform to the universal custom of 
the country they are in, as to times and modes of 
worship, as to local amusements, and as to a courteous 
recognition of the images which King Fashion has set 
up to be admired and extolled. 

If, indeed, they remain at home, they are still liable 
to have their standards of conscience-prompting 
shaped for them by those who are about them. Isn't 
it all right to go to the theater if some of our foremost 
church-members go there ? How can card-playing 
be wrong if some of our prayer-meeting leaders 
practice it ? The dances in which the Sunday-school 
superintendent takes a part so freely — are they not 
to be counted harmless for the teachers as well ? 
What harm can there be in tobacco-using when so 
many ministers enjoy their cigars ? Who can put up 
another business standard than the generally accepted 
standard in business? If the party methods of the 
best political party are not to your liking, where can 
you look for purer methods? And so all along the 
scale of morals. 

As, when one holds to his eyes a bit of colored 
glass, he sees through it the whole face of nature 
tinged accordingly, — paled with the sickly blue, flam- 
ing with the glaring red, or softened with the refresh- 
ing green, — so they who look at customs and methods 
through the medium of their local public sentiment, 
receive within themselves, through the window of 



230 Shoes a7td Rations for a Long March 

their eye, only the hue of moral light which colors 
that public sentiment ; and all things at which they 
gaze are blue, or red, or green, accordingly. **But 
they themselves, measuring themselves by themselves, 
and comparing themselves with themselves, are with- 
out understanding" (2 Cor. 10: 12). The light that 
is in them is dimness, if not indeed darkness. 

In view of all this, however, what hope is there of 
our knowing clearly the right from the wrong? How 
can we have a correct standard for our conscience- 
promptings? 

God is the source of moral light. The revelation 
of God in his Son and in his word, gives to our con- 
sciences their only safe standard and guide. He 
who uttered the words of warning in our text, ** Look 
therefore that the light which is in thee be not dark- 
ness," said also, *' I am the light of the world : he 
that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but 
shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). Of the 
Scriptures he said, " These are they which bear wit- 
ness of me" (John 5 : 39). His prayer to his Father 
for his loved ones was, ''Sanctify them [keep them 
holy] in the truth [within the limits of truth] : thy 
word is truth" (John 17: 17). 

The knowledge of God's truth came originally from 
without, through the eye, into man's inner being for 
the right instruction of his conscience. Nor is there 
a human being who has not before him some vestige 
of God's primal revelation of his truth ; some gleam 
on his conscience of ** the true light, even the light 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 231 

which lighteth every man, coming into the world " 
(John I : 9). And, however small may be the meas- 
ure of this light remaining to others, we have it avail- 
able in all its fulness and purity. 

** Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? 
By taking heed thereto according to thy word " (Psa. 
119 : 9). **The commandment of the Lord is pure, 
enlightening the eyes " (Psa. 19 : 8). *' The command- 
ment is a lamp; and the law is light" (Prov. 6 : 23). 
"Moreover by them is thy servant warned" (Psa. 

19:11). 

I have said that the conscience is like a compass ; 
but, in another sense, it is like a chronometer, — the 
watch used at sea in determining a vessel's longitude. 
The chronometer is not itself the true standard of 
time ; but it is conformed as nearly as may be to that 
standard, and then its rate of gain or true loss is care- 
fully noted, in order that true time may be learned 
from it. A wise shipmaster is jealously watchful of 
that piece of delicate mechanism, on which depends 
his knowledge of his bearings and the safety of his 
navigating. Before each voyage it must be newly 
rated by the great central light of day ; and at all 
times it must be tenderly handled, and shielded from 
harsh jarring, lest its nicer adjustment be destroyed. 

Thus, also, should man's conscience be set by the 
true standard of the Sun of Righteousness, rated 
frequently by the Bible record, and guarded watch- 
fully, lest by harsh using its accuracy be lost, and the 
soul be in mid-ocean without a guide. Unless you 



232 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

know how much your conscience-chronometer slows 
or quickens in the various latitudes where you sail, 
you will never be able to learn your bearings accur- 
ately or to lay your course correctly across the sea of 
life in your voyage homeward. 

When your conscience would justify you in getting 
even with one who has wronged you, and in "giving 
him as good as he sent," take a fresh look at the Bible 
injunction : ** Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but 
give place unto wrath : for it is written. Vengeance 
belongeth unto me ; I will recompense, saith the 
Lord" (Rom. 12 : 19), and observe that your con- 
science-chronometer runs ahead of the Bible standard 
just there. 

If you find, by the Bible teachings, that one-tenth 
of your income and one-seventh of your time belong 
to the Lord absolutely and outright, to begin with, 
and that your hold on the other nine-tenths of your 
income and six-sevenths of your time is not that of 
unconditional ownership, but of conditioned Christian 
stewardship, then see whether your conscience-chro- 
nometer does not run pretty slow in that latitude. A 
rating up of Christian consciences generally, by this 
standard, would add ciphers pretty fast at the right 
hand of benevolent contributions. There would be 
little trouble then about the support of missionaries 
or the building of new churches. 

You may have been accustomed to feel that you 
had ovXy yourself \.o consider in all questions concern- 
ing dress, or diet, or amusements ; whereas the Bible 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 233 

lays stress on your duty in such things, in view of the 
tender consciences and temptabihty of weaker disci- 
ples about you ; since **we that are strong ought to 
bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please 
ourselves" (Rom. 15 : i); therefore, ** It is good not 
to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything 
whereby thy brother stumbleth" (Rom. 14:21). Rec- 
ognizing the falling-off of your conscience-chronome- 
ter at this point, have the discrepancy in mind in all 
decisions of duty. 

Understand, in fact, at every turning-point of con- 
duct, that ** there is a way which seemeth right unto a 
man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" 
(Prov. 14 : 12) ; and let your cry, at every such time, 
be to your Saviour, — not to your conscience, but to 
your Saviour : ** Shew me thy ways, O Lord ; teach 
me thy paths" (Psa. 25 14); for *' I esteem all tJiy 
precepts concerning all things to be right " (Psa. 119: 
128). 

" The opening of thy words [to the eye] giveth 
light [to the conscience] ; it giveth understanding unto 
the simple " (Psa. 1 19 : 130). From the precepts and 
principles laid down in the Bible, you can learn (under 
the guidance of the Holy Spirit who inspired that 
Book, and who is ready to make its teachings plain) 
your personal duty on any point of morals in question. 
God's *' commandment is exceeding broad " (Psa. 
119: 96), his '* testimonies are wonderful " (Psa. 119: 
129). '* Thou shalt meditate therein day and night, 
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that 



234 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

is written therein : for then thou shalt make thy way 
prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success " 
(Josh. I : 8). Your conscience, fairly rated by that 
standard, will be a conscience that can be depended on. 

But, mark you ! your conscience must be conformed 
to what J/ ou find to be the Bible standard, — not to 
the standard which some one else says is set up in the 
Bible. *' Let each man be fully assured in his own 
mind" (Rom. 14 : 5). " To his own lord hestandeth 
or falleth" (Rom. 14 : 4). For example : as to all 
that I have said, incidentally, in this discourse, con- 
cerning various personal and social habits and cus- 
toms, I would not have your opinions shaped merely 
by mine ; nor would I have you accept on my affirma- 
tion any spiritual teaching as a teaching of God's 
word. 

Do not, I beg of you, think that is wrong to drink 
wine, or to play cards, or to dance, or to use tobacco, 
or to go to the theater, or to lie, or to be mean, merely 
because I seem to think so. Do not, on the other 
hand, think that any one of these things is right and 
proper merely because some persons else — even some 
thousands of Christians — evidently think so ; nor yet 
because you have yourself long indulged in that thing 
"without any qualms of conscience." "To the law 
and to the testimony" (Isa. 8 : 20) as to all these 
things, and as to the principles underlying them. If 
you are still to approve them, let it be because you 
find them approved by the word of God ; not because 
your mind inclines to them, your neighbors practice 



Conscience not a Safe Guide 235 

them, or some minister insists that they are all right. 
And so let it be concerning every other point in this 
discourse, or in any other address which I may make 
to you here or elsewhere. 

Moreover, during all the time you are here in this 
Students' Conference for Bible-study bear in mind 
that error as well as truth may be — -doubtless will be 
— proffered to you by those who are set to be your 
leaders in this study, and that you have it laid upon 
you to decide for yourselves just what in the words 
of these teachers is God's truth, and just what in them 
is man's error. Remember that you are here to learn 
how to study the Bible so as to find its true teachings, 
not to be told by others what you are to find in the 
Bible as its true teachings. You have a right, for ex- 
ample, to feel that everything which our dear friend 
Mr. Moody says to you is worth hearing and is worth 
considering, but you have no right to feel that any- 
thing which Mr. Moody declares as God's truth is to 
be accepted as God's truth merely because Mr. Moody 
deems it so. Nor would he have you rest for a 
moment on his words as always sure to accord with 
God's words, although he always means to have 
them thus. 

As in the case of Mr. Moody, so in the case of every 
Bible teacher ; what he says to you may seem like 
Bible truth, and yet not be Bible truth ; it may be ap- 
proved by your conscience as Bible truth, and yet not 
be Bible truth. And this thought it is that ought to 
deepen your sense of personal responsibility as you 



236 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

bear a part in this Students' Conference for Bible- 
study. A question of questions for each of you in- 
dividually is, Is the light that is in me light, or is it 
darkness ? May the Holy Spirit guide you every one 
into all truth ! 



DUTY OF MAKING THE PAST A SUCCESS 



X 

DUTY OF MAKING THE PAST A SUCCESS 

It was while I was doing my work as a chaplain in 
the Lord's army among young men in the schools 
and colleges of our country, that I was led to con- 
sider the truth as taught in the Bible and in human 
experience that we have practical duties toward those 
who have gone on before us, as well as toward those 
who are coming after us. This truth, with its cor- 
relative duties, grew on me in its importance. I came 
to press it again and again on the young, with the ever 
added responsibilities which they should feel. 

This sermon also I preached at the opening of an 
annual session of the World's Student Conference at 
Northfield. An incident in connection with that 
preaching touched me deeply. My son, a then recent 
graduate of Yale, was at that Conference. He came 
to me and said, " Father, that truth lays a new burden 
on me. I have been thinking of the importance of 
my doing well, on my own account, before God. But 
I had never thought before that if I fail you will suffer 
by it, not merely in your feelings, but in your reputa- 
tion. That gives me an added incentive and stimulus 
to right-doing." 

239 



240 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

I was more than glad, I was profoundly grateful, 
that I had preached that sermon. In the hope that 
its truth may stimulate some other son to a similar 
view of his duty, I publish it herewith. 



OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PAST 

God having provided some better thing concerning 
us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect 
(Heb. 1 1 : 40). 

To God's children, the present is better than the 
past. Aye ; and the past waits on the present for its 
completion by God's children. That is the truth that 
is suggested by this text, with its correspondent sug- 
gestion of our duty of making the incomplete past a 
success in the present. 

This eleventh chapter of Hebrews, of which our 
text is the closing verse, is a sublime exhibit of the 
surpassing power of a godly faith, illustrated out of 
the history of the ages. Its inspiring imagery is bor- 
rowed from the Isthmian games of ancient Greece ; 
and the whole force of the chapter can be realized 
only through an understanding of the locality and the 
main features of those games. 

Between cultured Athens and commercial Corinth 
stretched the " Isthmus," or " Bridge of the Sea," a 
neck of land connecting Peloponnesus, or the modern 
Morea, with the continent of Europe. There, at the 
narrowest part of the Isthmus, between "the winding 
shores of the * double sea/ " — the gulf of Lepanto, 

241 



242 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

or Corinth, on the west, and the Saronic gulf and 
Grecian Archipelago on the east, — was the place of 
these biennial games. Eight miles to the southward 
lay the splendid and wicked city of Corinth, with its 
magnificent temple to Aphrodite, or Venus, crowning 
the lofty height of the Acrocorinthus, at the foot of 
which the new city of money-making and lust was 
built. Beyond this height rolled the mountains of 
Peloponnesus. Thirty-five miles or more, in an air- 
line to the northward, — out of sight from the Isthmus, 
but distinctly seen from the Acrocorinthus, — was 
Athens, in its intellectual pride and its architectural 
glory, its Acropolis surmounted by the Parthenon and 
clustering temples, while towering above all was the 
far-famed bronze statue, by Phidias, of Athenae, or 
Pallas, or, more familiarly, Minerva Promachus; its 
burnished surface, as it stood in gigantic proportions 
with its upraised spear and shield, flashing back the 
sunhght, and visible from fifty miles away, on land or 
sea, as the protecting divinity of Athens and Attica. 
Away beyond loomed up the snow-clad peaks of Par- 
nassus and Helicon. 

Here on the Isthmus, with these classic surround- 
ings, was a stadium, or race-course, of the usual six 
hundred feet measurement. Here also was a theater 
for the " legitimate drama " of that day. The amphi- 
theater, for gladiatorial contests, was nearer the city. 
Here again was the great temple of Poseidon, or Nep- 
tune, in honor of whom the Isthmian games were 
celebrated, and at whose feet the victors bowed to 



Duty of Making the Past a Success 243 

receive their honors. From the stadium to the temple 
was an imposing avenue, Hned on one side by the 
statues of former victors in the games, and on the 
other by a row of pine-trees, from whose boughs were 
woven the wreaths to crown the conquerors. The 
contests of racing, wrestling, and boxing, and with 
swords and spears by foot-men and from chariots, 
were here witnessed each alternate spring, by vast 
multitudes from the neighboring cities and from all 
along the Mediterranean coast beyond. 

Notwithstanding the heathen character of these 
Isthmian games, there was a nobler side to them, in 
contrast with the effeminacy and self-indulgence which 
marked the life of the Corinthians generally. The 
contestants must all be of pure Hellenic stock, free 
from the taint of crime, above suspicion of bribery. 
They must deny themselves during at least ten months 
of preliminary training, being careful in diet and tem- 
perate in all things. When they came to the contest, 
their whole being must be in the struggle, or all their 
training would be found fruitless. To win the fading 
crown of pine they must count not their lives dear in its 
comparison. And if they won it, they were applauded 
and admired by the surrounding multitude. Their 
names and the names of their fathers — whom their vic- 
tory now honored — were sounded aloud by the herald. 
Their statues were soon to be added to the long row 
between the race-course and the temple. They were 
now an example to those who should come after them. 

Do you not now see the imagery of the Isthmian 



244 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

games in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews? The 
writer of this book, be he Paul or ApoUos, clearly 
is familiar with these games and their surroundings. 
He places himself and his readers at the entrance of 
a spiritual stadium. Looking up along the avenue of 
the ages which leads to the temple where sits the pre- 
siding Divinity of the contest, he points to the statues 
of former victors in this course, which line the way 
thitherward, and recalls the memory of their spirit and 
achievements. Look at them ! he says. 

There is Abel, of the oldest family of earth, first 
among conquerors through faith ; his voice rings in- 
spiringly in our ears to-day. Enoch; what a walk 
was his, and what a reward ! Noah ; why, he stood 
out against the world, and the whole earth was his 
inheritance and his triumph. Abraham and Sarah ; 
did they lose anything through their self-denial and 
their trust ? And Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph ; do 
you suppose they are sorry that they passed over this 
course victoriously ? , Moses, leader and lawgiver, 
with richer treasures than those of Egypt for his pos- 
session! Joshua, heroic and successful soldier! 
Rahab, rescued from death and yet worse, because of 
her simple-hearted faith ! 

"And what shall I more say?" as the long line 
glows and grows in the extending vista; "for the 
time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, 
Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: 
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of 



Duty of Making the Past a Success 245 

lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge 
of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed 
mighty in war, turned to flight armies of ahens. 
Women received their dead by a resurrection: and 
others were tortured, not accepting their dehverance; 
that they might obtain a better resurrection; and 
others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, more- 
over of bonds and imprisonment : they were stoned, 
they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were 
slain with the sword : they went about in sheepskins, 
in goatskins ; being destitute, afflicted, evil entreated 
(of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in 
deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the 
earth." Could ever anything be grander than this 
array ? Is not there a line of heroes to glory in, and 
to admire? 

But the writer to the Hebrews has a practical end in 
view in all his reminiscences. He has no thought of 
pointing out the achievements of the past only that 
they may be wondered over. Remember, he says, 
that these men and women of long ago began a good 
work which they left for us to carry on. They looked 
forward with keen desire to the coming of our present 
opportunity, but they died without attaining it, — " God 
having provided [or, foreseen] some better thing con- 
cerning us, that apart from us they should not be 
made perfect [or, complete]." 

Then, as if he saw the spirits of these heroes of 
faith leaning over the battlements of heaven, and cheer- 
ing the present contestants to the completion of the 



246 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

course which they had begun, he raised his voice in 
the clarion call: "Therefore let us also, seeing we are 
compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, 
lay aside every weight [or, all cumbrance], and the 
sin which doth so easily beset us [or, which so entan- 
gles our feet], and let us run with patience [or, with 
constancy] the race that is set before us [in this sta- 
dium], looking [up the statue-lined way] unto Jesus 
the author and perfecter of our faith [our starter and 
sustainer in this course], who [when he ran this race] 
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, 
despising shame, and [in the heavenly temple yonder] 
hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of 
God." 

There is the lesson of this portion of Hebrews. 
There is its call to you and to me this evening. The 
past is ever dependent on the present for its highest 
value and its completest efficiency. Unless you and 
I do our duty, all that went before, in the line of our 
life and labors, is a practical failure. 

What profits it that David has prepared with all his 
might for the house of his God, unless Solomon is 
faithful in carrying forward the temple building ? Sup- 
pose a church was founded in Laodicea; if the fol- 
lowers of the first converts there prove but lukewarm 
and self-satisfied, the best labors of the beginners 
shall be fruitless to posterity when the church itself 
has ceased to exist. How came there so different re- 
sults from the early coming to New England of the 
Norseland navigators, and the later following of the 



Duty of Making the Past a Success 247 

English Puritans, except that the children of the 
Northmen took no advantage of the discoveries of 
their fathers, while the descendants of the Puritans 
have maintained and extended the Puritan faith and 
the Puritan works ? 

It would be of comparatively small account in his- 
tory that the Declaration of Independence was signed, 
and that the old State House bell rang out the joyous 
announcement of that fact on July 4, 1776, if July 4, 
1892,^ were not to show a nation in any sense worthy 
of that beginning, worthy of the living and the dying 
of its founders and its defenders. Any cause of the 
fathers is a "lost cause " when the children are untrue 
to it. It is ever God's plan that the work of those 
who went before should not be made complete with- 
out the work of those who follow after. 

It is right that the grandeur of the historic past 
should be recognized in the present, but only in order 
that its inspirations may tell on the work of those 
who are now making their place in history. Said Na- 
poleon, at the head of his army in Egypt, " Soldiers, 
from those pyramids forty centuries look down on 
you." But Napoleon had not brought his soldiers 
there to study Egyptian monuments or memories or 
mummies. He had hard fighting for them to do ; 
and he called on them to do it bravely and well, as in 
sight of the "cloud of witnesses" of the forty fore- 
going centuries, the work of which he had come pro- 
fessedly to improve on and complete. 

1 This sermon was preached on the eve of the Fourth of July. 



248 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

There is something uplifting and expanding in the 
sense of a " historic consciousness," in the thought 
that we belong to a race, or a nation, or a city, or a 
church, or a college, or a family, with a noble history. 
But if this sense of a historic consciousness satisfies 
us, if it lessens our determined purpose to live up to, 
and to carry forward, and in our sphere to improve 
on, the history already made in this line, it would 
have been better for us never to have had it. 

It is all very well for a young man to say that he 
is in an academy or a college where Thomas Jeffer- 
son, or Archibald Alexander, or Horace Binney, or 
Noah Webster, received his early education. But the 
practical question is : Is that institution of learning to 
gain, or to lose, in its reputation, through having that 
young man as a graduate, in the line of this succes- 
sion ? Unless, indeed, he does his part as well as the 
more famous of the old scholars there did theirs, he 
will not only gain nothing through their repute, but 
he is actually aiding to dim the luster which their 
names gave to his Alma Mater. 

And as to your family, my young friend, if you are 
doing more nobly than your grandfather did, you may 
rejoice that he lived an honored life ; but it were better 
for you to have been a Bushman of South Africa, and 
improved your privileges, than to belong to one of 
the best old families of Massachusetts or Virginia, 
and not improve on its record. The question is not 
whether you are proud of your grandfather, but 
whether your grandfather would be proud of you. 



Duty of Making the Past a Success 249 

It is a good thing to be in a family line which had 
a fine start long ago, and has been and still is im- 
proving, generation by generation. It is a sad thing 
to be in a family line where the best men and women 
were in its former generations. 

Some years ago, as I met one of our distinguished 
Union generals, I asked that I might bring my son 
to take his hand and have his greeting, so that he 
could remember it in the years to come. As, with 
his consent, I introduced my boy, he said to him: 
"Charley, I'm glad to see you. I hope that you will 
grow up to be a man, and that you will make a good 
man, — a great deal better man than your father." 
" That's right, general," I said ; " if he isn't a better 
man than his father, both of us will be failures." 
There is no other way to look at it ! Your and my 
lives will, in the main, prove a failure unless our chil- 
dren do better than we do. Our parents were meas- 
ureably a failure unless we carry forward their lives 
and their life-work toward perfection. 

Some years ago, in company with a distinguished 
friend of mine, I was presented to Josiah Quincy, then 
one of " the solid men of Boston," an ex-mayor of 
the city, and an ex-president of the state Senate. He 
was a son of President Quincy of Harvard University, 
a grandson of the Revolutionary orator, a brother of 
Edmund Quincy the writer, and the father of the 
poet Josiah Phillips Quincy and of General Samuel 
Miller Quincy. As my friend gave expression to our 
satisfaction in meeting one whose honored name and 



250 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

whose honored family name were so familiar to us, 
Mr. Quincy said, with gracefulness and modesty: 
" Personally, I have done little to command public 
attention ; but I am linked with those who have. I 
am perhaps best known as the son of my father, and 
as the father of my sons." Such a family as that is 
in the line of true progress, its members of each gen- 
eration making available the better things than those 
of former days, which God has provided for them, 
and without the wise use of which the work of their 
fathers would not be made perfect. 

The Chinese exalt this idea of the value to their 
ancestors of the well-doing of the children, so that 
it becomes a main feature of their religious system. 
They hold that the happiness of all those of former 
generations is dependent on the fidelity to their mem- 
ory, and the attention to their wants, of those who 
come after them. Even the emperor, " Son of Heaven," 
as he is styled, declares in his hour of most solemn 
worship, " My thought is to carry out the aims of 
those who preceded me, thus ensuring the gift of 
long prosperity for thousands and tens of thousands 
of years." Every success of a Chinese youth is sup- 
posed to increase the dignity of all his ancestors ; and 
if his father be still living when he carries off any 
great competitive honors, the chief award is made to 
the father, rather than to the son. 

Is there not a certain reasonableness in this way of 
looking at the matter? When a young man rises up 
above the common level of his fellows, he lifts on his 



Duty of Making the Past a Success 251 

shoulders, as it were, the former generations of his 
family into a new prominence before the world. How 
old Captain Ezekiel Webster grew in public esteem 
when his son Daniel was fairly in the practice of law ! 
What could have honored Mary the mother of Wash- 
ington in comparison with the career of the son of 
her love ? 

Think of this, young man just setting out in life! 
Consider your part in making the work of your 
parents, and of those who were "before them, a suc- 
cess ! Is not here an added stimulus to exertion ? 
Perhaps your mother toiled to secure you an educa- 
tion. Her face wrinkled, and her hair whitened, and 
her strength lessened, in her effort to make provision 
for you. And now comes the question. Was she 
using her time and strength to good advantage? 
That question it is for you rather than for her to 
answer ; God having provided some better thing con- 
cerning you, that apart from you her work should not 
be made complete. 

Every son of a dead mother, or of a dead father, 
here this evening, has a responsibility, not alone for 
his own success, but for the success of that dead 
parent, in his coming life-struggle. By his love for 
the dead let him be faithful in his day. 

" He mourns the dead who lives as they desired." 

Why, the completest life which the world ever 
knew left somewhat of its filling out to be done by 
those who should come after! Paul, speaking of his 



^52 shoes and Rations for a Long March 

sufferings for Christ's sake, and for the sake of Christ's 
church, says : " I ... fill up on my part that which is 
lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his 
body's sake, which is the church " (Col. I : 24). Or 
as St. Augustine puts it, in applying this truth to every 
disciple of Jesus : " Whosoever therefore thou art, if 
thou art a member of Christ, whatsoever thou sufferest, 
was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. Therefore 
that suffering of thine is added because it was lacking; 
thou art filling the measure, not making it flow over. 
Thou sufferest so much in thyself as was to be poured 
in the universal passion of Christ, who suffered in our 
Head, and who suffers in his members, — that is, in us. 
The whole measure of suffering will not be filled up 
till the world comes to an end." 

" Strange words ! and even stranger thought! 
But yet to inspiration due ; — 
We ' fill up that which is behind' 
Of all the suffering Jesus knew. 

*'We are thy body, Lord, and what 
As man thou didst not undergo, 
Thy suffering members still supply, 
To ' fill up ' what thou didst forgo, 

" And so, O mystery of love ! 

'Tis ours to prove, by kindred mind, 
This deepest fellowship with thee, 
' And fill up that which is behind.' " ^ 

Your sorrow, your disappointment, your bereave- 
ment, your struggle with temptation, Jesus could not 

1 Mary K. A. Stone. 



DiUy of Makmg the Past a Success 253 

himself meet and bear for you while he was in the 
flesh; therefore he left them for you to bear for him. 
And as with his sufferings, so with his labors. Jesus 
could not teach your Sunday-school class, as he sat 
by the shores of Gennesaret. He could not visit that 
poor mother whom you know of only a short distance 
from your home, as he walked up and down the land 
of Palestine with weary feet. He could not watch by 
the sick-bed of your dying neighbor, while out on 
the mountain he continued all night in prayer to God. 
These labors of love were not for him to complete, 
God having provided some better thing concerning 
you, that apart from you his labors should not be 
wholly performed. 

And you who have not yet accepted Christ's offer 
of salvation, — if such a one should be here this even- 
ing, — just think of all the past which waits on your 
decision for its completion! The whole plan of re- 
demption, in its marvelous story from the first promise 
in Eden to the ascending into heaven of our crucified 
and risen Lord near Bethany; and well-nigh nineteen 
centuries of Christian history and Christian effort ; 
and all your training thus far; every prayer which 
has been offered for you ; every sermon which you 
have heard ; every word of warning or invitation which 
has been spoken to you ; every lesson which you 
have read out of the book of God, — all, all is yet im- 
perfect and incomplete, so far as you and your salva- 
tion are concerned; all, all will, so far, be a failure, 
unless your submissive, trustful voice shall say, " Lord, 



254 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

I believe; help thou mine unbelief." What interests 
out of all the past, as well as what consequences for 
all the future, are involved in your decision concern- 
ing your personal salvation! And Jesus himself 
waits lovingly for your answer to his invitation, 
" Come unto me," that in your coming he may so far 
see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. 

How this great thought — of our part in making all 
the past a success — does uplift and ennoble the fact of 
life and of living! We stand as it were between the 
centuries, the hope of former ages as of future. How 
much to the universe may depend on our fidelity and 
courage in the doing of present duty, here and now ! 

Beginning this new session of these Students' Con- 
ferences here at Northfield, we have a measure of re- 
sponsibility for all the conferences of this sort that 
have preceded this. It is for us to show in our spirit 
and ways and words whether those earlier conferences 
were wisely planned and managed, and whether the 
work undertaken by them was work that was worth 
planning and worth doing : " God having provided 
some better thing concerning us, that apart from us 
they should not be made perfect." 

" Noble things the great Past promised, 
Holy dreams, both strange and new, 
But the Present shall fulfil them. 
What he promised, she shall do." 

And " thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 



TRUSTING BETTER THAN WORRYING 



XI 

TRUSTING BETTER THAN WORRYING 

A marked difference between good and disciplined 
soldiers and new recruits or soldiers poorly trained, 
is in the readiness with which, on the one hand, they 
obey orders or wait where they are stationed until 
they receive orders to move elsewhere ; or, on the 
other hand, chafe in inaction and incline to complain 
because their commander does not do differently. 
This was a practical lesson impressed on me in my 
army-life. 

Later I found that the same difficulty is as common 
in civil life as in military. And there is more sym- 
pathy with one who worries than with one who quietly 
trusts. In my observation and my reading I have found 
that the majority see more good in bustling, fault- 
finding, inefficient Martha of Bethany, than in calm, 
restful, competent, and true Mary, who knew her place 
and filled it, who understood her duty and did it. 

To my surprise I found many eloquent preachers 
and many learned commentators ready to disagree 
with Jesus where he commends trustful Mary and 
rebukes bustling Martha. This newly convinced me 
that, in camp and field, in home-life and in ordinary 

257 



258 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

business, the qualities that have approval with great 
earthly commanders, and with the Captain of our 
Salvation, are not popular qualities. In view of this 
I wrote and preached this sermon, which I always 
found to be unacceptable to my hearers, but which I 
desire to have preserved as expressing my view of 
the positive teachings of Jesus, and of the uniform 
duty of his disciples. 



MARY A BETTER HOUSEKEEPER 
THAN MARTHA 

Now it came to pass^ as they went, that he entered 
into a certain village : and a certain woman najned 
Martha received him into her house. And she had a 
sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and 
heard his word. 

But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and 
cam.e to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my 
sister hath left m,e to serve alone ? bid her therefore 
that she help me. 

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, 
Martha, thou art carefid and troubled about many 
things: but one thing is needful; and Mary hath 
chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away 
from, her (Luke lo : 38-42). 

This is a very familiar passage of Scripture, but a 
much abused one. Few Bible incidents are more 
commonly misconceived in their explicit teachings 
than is this interview of our Lord with the sisters at 
Bethany. 

Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem from the east of 
Jordan, had reached the little village of Bethany, on 
the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, near 

259 



2 6o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

its base, not quite two miles from the Holy City. 
Bethany was the home of Lazarus and Martha and 
Mary, all of whom Jesus loved tenderly (John 
11:5). Their home was one of his homes, — a home 
of sacred friendship to him; a home where he was 
always welcome, always sure to give and to receive 
the affectionate sympathy of a friend. It is in con- 
nection with that home in Bethany that we know 
more of the tenderer side of the human nature of 
Jesus — more of the social qualities of the Son of 
man — than from any other portion of his life-story. 

On this occasion of his coming, both sisters wanted 
to do Jesus honor. Mary recognized him as Master 
and Teacher, and promptly took her place at his feet 
— the Oriental position of a pupil — to hear and to 
heed his word. Her first thought was of learning his 
wishes. Her first desire was to do as he might direct. 
But Martha had plans of her own. She was sure as 
to what ought to be done in that house that day. 
Without stopping to learn what Jesus wanted, she 
began to work and to worry in the line of hospitable 
provision for her friend and guest. To Martha the 
restful inaction of Mary at such an hour seemed 
strangely unseasonable. In the natural freedom of 
a real friendship, but in a pettishness that was none 
the more excusable for being natural, Martha came to 
Jesus to tell him of her personal trouble and to ask 
his help out of it. " Lord, dost thou not care that my 
sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid her therefore 
that she help me." 



Trusting Better than Worrying 261 

Now, if Martha's view of this case was a correct 
one, Jesus knew it. If Mary was at fault, he was 
aware of that. If both were right, — each after her 
own sort, — with different way of doing God service, 
and of honoring the Son of God, Jesus did not fail to 
understand it accordingly. If, however, Jesus took 
sides with either sister in this variance of opinion, he 
had a good reason for so doing. Jesus never made a 
mistake. What course did he pursue ? "And Jesus 
answered and said unto her " (speaking in the kind 
familiarity of a trusted friend), " Martha, Martha, thou 
art careful and troubled [full of worrying anxiety] 
about many things." That wasn't right. Jesus 
taught his disciples to have no anxiety, or worrying 
care, concerning what they were to eat, or drink, or 
wear; and to let not their hearts be troubled. " But 
one thing [one thing only] is needful," he added ; "and 
Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be 
taken away from her." Mary here is in the right 
place, and at her proper work just now; and she 
must not be interfered with. 

It is just at this point that there is such a wide- 
spread reluctance to admit the plain truth of this Gos- 
pel passage. Martha had a house to look after, it is 
said; and no house will run itself. There is work to 
be done in it every hour. With company to entertain, 
it will never do to sit down with folded hands, in the 
morning, leaving the arrangements for the day all un- 
attended to. Was not Martha right in feeling a bur- 
den which Mary ought to share ? Busy housewives 



262 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

and sorely tried mothers are inclined to sympathize 
with Martha in her anxieties and in her complaint, 
and to wonder how anybody can count Mary a model 
woman for this matter-of-fact world of ours. Hus- 
bands and fathers also are likely to feel that Martha 
was on the right track for a housekeeper, and that 
Mary ought not to be set before their wives and 
daughters as a pattern. 

These opinions on the merits of this case are by no 
means unnatural. They have a certain show of rea- 
son about them. But the difficulty with them is that 
they are not consistent with our Lord's evident view 
of the matter. Jesus did commend Mary, and did re- 
buke Martha. If he had not expressed himself on 
the question, it might be called an open one ; but as 
it is, those who would champion Martha in her con- 
duct must admit at the start that they disagree with 
their Lord as to prudence and duty. 

Christian commentators, unwilling to assert that 
our Lord was in error, unwilling to affirm that be- 
cause he was a man he never could understand the 
work and the trials of a woman, — yet unprepared to 
accept the apparent truth taught in his rebuke of 
Martha, — have variously endeavored to explain away 
the obvious sense of his words by strained renderings 
of the simple text. Some say that Jesus sought to 
assure Martha of the few temporal wants of himself 
and his disciples. " Do not be anxious," they under- 
stand him to say, " to spread a great dinner of ^ many 
things* for us to-day. A single dish is all that we 



Trusting Better thmi Worrying 263 

require." And so the '' one thing needful " is Hmited 
in its application to a dinner bill of fare ! Such a 
perversion as this would seem too trifling for serious 
mention, were it not that so many have accepted it as 
reasonable. A yet more common incorrect applica- 
tion of the one thing needful is to the salvation of 
the soul. By those who hold this view, Mary's choice 
is called wise for eternity, even though she neglected 
the things of time. She was preparing for a place in 
heaven, however poorly she filled one on earth. 

Others again consider that both sisters did well in 
their way. " Martha was well employed," says a dis- 
tinguished divine; "but Mary, on this occasion, <^^/- 
ter!' In the same line of thought, one of the best 
approved modern commentaries declares : " The one 
[sister] represents the contemplative^ the other the 
active style of the Christian character. A church full 
of Marys would be as great an evil as a church full 
of Marthas. Both are wanted, each to be the com- 
plement of the other." Only think of it ! A church 
full of the sort of person approved by our Saviour 
as great an evil as a church full of a sort disapproved 
by him ! The idea of this commentary — and it is 
perhaps a popular idea — is that Martha was the sen- 
sible, active, efficient matron who did the housework 
in the Bethany home, while Mary was a fair candidate 
for a nunnery cloister, a devout and weak sister, who 
found comfort in thinking about good things, instead 
of doing them. 

Away with all such misconceptions and distortions 



264 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of the text as these ! Jesus meant what he said, — ^just 
what a Httle child would understand from his words. 
Martha was wrong in being anxiously worried over 
the many things in her household duties ; wrong in 
thinking that it would be a loss of time to stop and 
receive counsel and instruction from Jesus while he 
was in her home. Mary was right in trusting her 
Lord and Master utterly ; right in her readiness to 
wait when he said wait, and to act when he said act. 
Mary was doubtless a better housekeeper than Martha. 
She probably did more work in a day, and did it bet- 
ter. Martha's worry did not lighten her burdens, nor 
do her work. On the contrary, it increased her bur- 
dens and delayed her work. Bustle is never the test 
of true efficiency. Faith never hinders wise service. 
The housekeepers in this congregation — or in any 
other — who do most work, and who do it best, are 
not those who bluster and complain most, nor are they 
those who count time taken for prayer and for com- 
munion with God as lost time. The Marys are 
always the best housewives, as well as the best church- 
members. There is no gain for the life that now is — 
nor for any of its activities — in following the exam- 
ple of the restless, care-filled, over-anxious, impatient 
Martha. 

Suppose you had just hired a new servant, and you 
told her to stand before you while you gave her direc- 
tions concerning the work you had for her to do. 
While she waited patiently, listening to your words, 
suppose another of your servants should rush into 



Trusting Better than Worrying 265 

the room, declaring that it was washing-day, and 
almost dinner-time, and she couldn't be expected to 
do all the kitchen work alone at such a time, and that 
you ought to send out that new girl to help her. 
Which of those girls would you count the best serv- 
ant ? the one who did, or stood, as you directed, or 
the one who chafed restlessly under your way of 
managing your own affairs? The error of those who 
think that Martha's course was better than Mary's, is 
in forgetting that Jesus was Lord and Master — as 
well as Friend — in that Bethany home, and that both 
sisters ought to have shown themselves his willing — 
and, if necessary, his waiting — servants. Martha 
called Jesus both " Lord " and ** Master " (John 11:21, 
28). Mary showed by her conduct that she so con- 
sidered him. 

To illustrate from another and more active sphere ; 
for this lesson is not to housekeepers only: A sol- 
dier's chief duty is to obey orders. This involves, at 
times, the waiting for orders. I have seen the officers 
and men of a veteran regiment lying inactive on the 
ground in the hour of thickest fight of a day of 
bloody battle. The roar of artillery and the rattle of 
musketry were heard on every side. Charge and 
countercharge were made, with ringing cheers, at 
right and left, along the sharply contested lines. Shot 
and shell passed over, or fell among, the reclining 
soldiers. The dead and wounded were carried past 
them to the rear. Frightened stragglers from battal- 
ions already in action, and timid orderlies and aides, 



266 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

carrying messages hither and thither, told nervously 
how " everything was going against us," and wondered 
why this regiment was not ordered forward. Yet 
all the while the waiting soldiers seemed free from 
anxiety. They drank their coffee, or munched their 
rations, or read home letters, or chatted with one 
another, or even slept. 

But their inaction was not because they were un- 
suited, or unwilling, to have a share in the engage- 
ment. They were simply " in reserve." They were 
waiting orders. Meanwhile they trusted their com- 
manders. They had no worry; no care beyond their 
responsibility. The first call of their colonel, "Atten- 
tion! " would bring every soldier of their number to 
his feet, ready to do or to die in the contest, and that 
long quietly waiting regiment would be worth more 
in a fight than a whole brigade of worrying soldiers 
who doubted the skill or thoughtfulness of their com- 
manding general, and were afraid that he had waited 
too long before calling them, or would fail to use 
them to best advantage now that they were in action. 
So always in God's service : 

•* Who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best ; his state 
Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest : 
They also serve who only stand and wait." * 

" Wherefore," says the apostle to the soldiers of 
Christ, "take unto you the whole armour of God, that 

1 Milton. 



Trusting Better than Worrying 267 

ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having 
done all, to stand " (Eph. 6 : 13). " In your patience 
possess ye your souls" (Luke 21 : 19), says Jesus. 
*' Here," says the disciple whom Jesus loved, " Here is 
the patience and the faith of the saints " (Rev. 13 : 10). 

Martha lacked patience because she lacked faith. 
Mary had a faith which showed itself in patient wait- 
ing when waiting was in order, and would have shown 
itself to like advantage in patient household work 
had such work been then her duty. Remember that 
it was this same Mary who, on another occasion, 
brought so costly an offering of love to Jesus as to 
startle the calculating disciples by its extravagant 
lavishness (Mark 14 : 3, 4; John 11 : i, 2). Remem- 
ber that it was of her that Jesus declared, ** She hath 
wrought a good work. , . . She hath done what she 
could," — done her utmost; and " Wheresoever this 
gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, 
this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a 
memorial of her " (Mark 14 : 6-9). Of what other 
woman's work was there ever such a record ? 

Whether it were giving, or doing, or waiting, that 
Jesus asked for, Mary was ready. He knew best 
what was her duty of the hour, and what were his 
wants. Lovingly, restfully, she was at his service, 
and this it was that he commended in her so heartily. 

" Christ never asks of us such busy labor 
As leaves no time for resting at his feet ; 
The waiting attitude of expectation, 

He ofttimes counts a service most complete. 



2 68 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" We sometimes wonder why our Lord doth place us 
Within a sphere so narrow, so obscure, 
That nothing we call work can find an entrance ; 
There's only room to suffer — to endure ! 

" Well, God loves patience ! Souls that dwell in stillness, 
Doing the little things, or resting quite. 
May just as perfectly fulfil their mission. 
Be just as useful in the Father's sight, 

** As they who grapple with some giant evil, 
Clearing a path that every eye may see ! 
Our Saviour cares for cheerful acquiescence, 
Rather than for a busy ministry." 

This is the blessed teaching of the incident of the 
text. Let us recognize its appHcation to our individ- 
ual needs. 

" But one thing is needful." " One thing." What 
thing? Mary had it. Martha lacked it. We ought 
to want it. Just what is it ? Implicit faith, restful 
trust, in the Lord Jesus Christ, is this one thing 
needful; needful in the greatest matters, needful in 
the least; needful at one time, needful at all times. 
To begin with : This faith — this resting one's self on 
the Lord Jesus Christ — is essential to salvation. 

We can not save ourselves. We must be saved — 
or we must continue lost. All of us have sinned. 
" The wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is 
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 
6 : 23). This truth is the distinguishing feature of 
Christianity, of the religion of the Bible. Mark that ! 



Trusting Better than Worrying 269 

He who studies most closely the " science of compar- 
ative religions," can find in no sacred books, of old 
faiths or new, anything to show a Saviour of sinners 
except the story of Jesus, — Jesus in prophecy, and 
Jesus in history. " Neither is there salvation in any 
other: for there is none other name under heaven 
given among men" (Acts 4 : 12), — even proposed or 
suggested, — "whereby we must be saved." 

Think for yourselves ! What is the grand, distinct- 
ive peculiarity of the Christian religion ? It is not 
the purity of its moral code; not the prominence it 
gives to unselfish love for others; not the inducement 
it offers to men to live for eternity. Christianity has 
power through all these features. Yet in false re- 
ligions there are glimpses of the same great truths. 
The exceptional and glorious characteristic of Chris- 
tianity — separating it utterly from every other religion 
— is its presentation of a Redeemer for the lost. 
Yes ! the truth of truths in the Bible is, not in the 
Ten Commandments ; not in the Sermon on the 
Mount; not in the Golden Rule; not in the Parable 
of the Prodigal Son, or of the Good Samaritan ; not 
in the description of the City of God ; but it is in 
the story of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners. 

It was to the young man who claimed to have kept 
all the commandments from his youth up, that Jesus 
said, " One thing thou lackest" (Mark 10 : 21). The 
" one thing " which the young man lacked was the 
" one thing " which Mary had chosen, — a willing- 
ness to give up everything — one's self, one's plans, 



2 70 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

one's possessions, one's occupation — to Jesus, and to 
trust him utterly (Matt. 19 : 21). The young man 
was as willing to work as was Martha, but he could 
not trust like Mary. Whatever else a sinner has, if 
he lacks this one thing he has no safety. Only Jesus 
can give salvation. " He that believeth on him 
[trusteth himself to him] is not condemned: but he 
that believeth not [trusteth not] is condemned already, 
because he hath not believed [not trusted] in the 
name of the only begotten Son of God " (John 3 : 18). 
Remember that these are the words of Jesus himself. 
They are words of truth; God's words. 

And this implicit faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 
which is essential to salvation is the only thing on 
which our salvation depends. This is clearly implied 
in the words of our Lord in the text, " But one thing " 
— one thing only — " is needful." The one needful 
thing is the one thing needful. It is the only thing 
needful, because it includes all else that is of impor- 
tance. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts 16 : 31). These 
were the words of the inspired Paul and Silas to the 
inquiring jailer of Philippi. They are as true now 
as then; and they state fully the terms of salvation to 
every lost sinner seeking to be saved. 

Of course, a man must realize that he is lost, or he 
will not seek to be saved. There can be no salvation 
unless there is something to be saved from. But he 
who knows that he is lost, and wants to be saved, can 
have salvation by simply trusting himself to Jesus as 



Trusting Better than Worrying 271 

his Saviour. Saving faith has been well defined by 
Dr. Bushnell as " that act by which one person, a 
sinner, commits himself to another person — tJie 
Saviour." That is all there is of it — the **one thing" 
needful. 

Oh ! how many sinners who want to be saved are 
like Martha, " careful and troubled about many 
things," when " but one thing is needful," and that 
one so simple. They are troubled lest they are not 
enough troubled. They are afraid that they are not 
enough afraid. They question whether they know 
enough about all the questions which will force them- 
selves upon every one who thinks at all of religion. 
They let the fact that they are sinners stand in the 
way of their faith, when in truth they could not be 
saved unless they were sinners. They worry over 
doctrines, or duties, or feelings, or experiences, when 
all the time they might be like Mary sitting in restful 
peace at the feet of Jesus, hearing gladly his word. 

And now one step further. Implicit trust in the 
Lord Jesus Christ is needful, and is the one thing 
needful, to give us success and peace in meeting the 
duties and trials of every-day life. 

We — and when I say "we" I mean to include all 
those who look to Jesus as their Saviour — we are 
quite as dependent on Jesus for protection and guid- 
ance and supply hour by hour as for the hope of 
eternal salvation. " The Father had given all things 
into his hands " (John 13:3), "and by him all things 
consist" (Col. I : 17). What can we feel capable of 



272 Shoes a7id Rations for a Long March 

doing, or of holding, without his consent and assist- 
ance ? 

Just at this point is where Mary's discipleship was 
satisfactory to Jesus, as Martha's was not. Martha 
recognized Jesus as the Messiah. She trusted him in 
what she counted his sphere. Had she been dying 
she would not have doubted him for then, and for 
thenceforward. But she felt no dependence on him 
in her daily household work. That was her burden, 
and not his. She was, indeed, out of patience with 
Mary for looking to Jesus for direction and counsel 
before dinner was ready. " I enjoy Christian exer- 
cises," she might have said, *' as much as anybody, at 
a proper time. I like spiritual communings when I 
have leisure for them. But work is work, and religion 
is religion. It is no time to talk religion when work 
presses as it does in this house just now." To Martha, 
Jesus was a Teacher and a Master only with reference 
to things spiritual — in their time. 

Mary's faith in Jesus was, on the other hand, all- 
inclusive. She believed that he knew better than she 
what she ought to do, and when and how. He would 
not, she was sure, let any lack remain through her in- 
action when he bade her wait. She drew no such 
line of distinction between work and religion as would 
keep them apart in her daily living and doing. She 
could get along without divine help no more easily in 
the kitchen than in the parlor ; in her home than in the 
sanctuary. She would be, in either place, at the call 
of Jesus. She would trust him absolutely in both. 



Trusting Better than Worrying 273 

Ah ! it was Mary — not Martha — who trusted and 
best served God in every-day Hfe. Mary was the 
practical Christian woman; Martha was the speculative 
one. Mary's religion was good for seven days in the 
week. Martha's was good for the Sabbath, and for 
week-days — after her work was done. When her 
brother Lazarus was dead, Martha wished that Jesus 
had been at hand. When dinner was to be made 
ready, she only wanted Mary. Yet her need of Jesus 
was no greater, and her rest on him should have been 
none the less, in the one case than in the other. This 
lesson was included in our Lord's rebuke of Martha 
when she complained of Mary. 

We are all prone to divide our needs into two classes : 
Those where we must have God's help, and those 
where that does not seem so essential. The little boy 
who wanted to ask God to take care of him nights, 
but didn't think he needed to pray mornings, " be- 
cause he could take care of himself day-times," was 
a good deal like the rest of us in counting God's pro- 
tection and ministry more necessary at one time than 
at another. 

Many Christians who will pray earnestly for for- 
giveness of sins, for strength against temptation, for 
support in sorrow or trial ; and who will call on God 
for safety in personal danger, or for restored health 
in sickness, — never think of going to Jesus trustfully 
for instruction and assistance in training their children, 
in curbing their own tempers, in improving their 
speech and manners, in managing their business, in 



274 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

doing a difficult task — balancing a cash account, 
driving a spirited horse, learning or teaching a lesson, 
choosing a place of summer resort, buying a coat, 
trimming a bonnet, finding a servant, or making a 
loaf of bread. But who shall say that any one of 
these things is beneath our Saviour's notice — if it is 
of importance to one of his disciples ? Or who shall 
affirm that any such thing is within our sphere of un- 
aided control ? 

"Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven 
thee; or to say, Arise and walk?" (Matt. 9 : 5) asked 
Jesus, when he stood ready to cleanse a guilty soul, 
or to cure a diseased body. He asks the same ques- 
tion now, of those who feel their need of him in spir- 
itual things, but think they can take care of them- 
selves in things temporal. If you can answer the 
prayer, " Give us this day our daily bread," why can 
not you also grant the petitions, " Forgive us our 
debts," and " Deliver us from evil "? The words of 
Jesus on this point to his disciples are, " Without me 
ye can do nothing " (John 15:5). 

It is because so many Christians who trust Jesus in 
greater things fail to trust him in the lesser, that their 
religion appears to such disadvantage in their ordinary 
daily life. Martha showed a far more lovely spirit 
while struggling under a sense of her brother's loss 
than when perplexed in preparing a dinner. And, as 
a bright New England preacher has suggested, " Many 
a man's Christianity could stand burnings at the stake, 
which would fail over a burnt biscuit, or a bad cup 



Trusting Better than Worrying 275 

of coffee." ^ Even wives who sympathize with Martha 
in her worry will be inclined to admit the truth of 
this statement concerning the average Christian hus- 
band. But what a low estimate it is of the grace 
which is in Christ Jesus that limits its exercise to 
great occasions, or that doubts its potency outside of 
the spiritual realm. God's love is no more to be re- 
strained in the one direction than in the other. " He 
that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for 
us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us 
all things ? " (Rom. 8 : 32.) Why should we distrust 
God's readiness to supply our minor needs, since he 
has given us unasked the costliest treasure of the uni- 
verse ? 

As a Christian disciple, you have no more right to 
worry about your household work, your business, or 
your profession, than you have to worry about your 
salvation. Worry of any sort is out of place in a fol- 
lower of Jesus. It is a load we have no need to carry. 
One of my little daughters brought to me, a while ago, 
a quarto geography having on its cover a picture of 
fabled Atlas, bearing the globe on his shoulders. 
Pointing to the over-burdened man, with his bowed 
head, up-strained shoulders, and distended muscles, 
staggering under the weight that seemed just ready 
to crush him, she said, in pitying sympathy, " Papa ! 
why don't that man lay that thing down ? " " Well, 
my dear," I answered, " it would be a great deal better 
if he did. But that man has the idea that he must 

* President Foss of Wesleyan. 



276 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

carry the world on his shoulders. There are a good 
many men of that sort, as you will find when you are 
older." That child's question is a pertinent one to 
any of you who are struggling under an oppressive 
burden of personal anxiety of any nature whatsoever. 
" Why don't you lay that thing down ? " " Cast thy 
burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee " 
(Psa. 55 : 22). It is not always the work that is tobe 
given up, but it is the worry about it. " Come unto 
me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden," says that 
Jesus at whose feet Mary sat trustfully, "and I will 
give you rest " (Matt. 1 1 : 28). Why will you not 
heed that invitation, and so " find rest unto your 
souls " ? 

But may we be sure, you perhaps ask, that this 
invitation includes all the ordinary burdens of daily 
life ? that it is not limited to spiritual things ? Hear 
how our Lord explains it. *' Therefore take no 
thought," — retain no burden of anxiety or worry, — 
" saying, What shall we eat ? or. What shall we drink ? 
or. Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? . . . For your 
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all 
these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, 
and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be 
added unto you (Matt. 6 : 31-33). Not much doubt 
as to his meaning there ! 

But all this was to the personal disciples of Jesus, 
you say, while he was here in the flesh, working mira- 
cles for the benefit of his loved ones. We can look 
for no such wonderful help as he gave to them in 



Trusting Better than Worrying 277 

their need. How was it with Martha ? The personal 
Jesus was there, in her home. He who had fed five 
thousand with five loaves, and four thousand with 
seven loaves (Matt. 16 : 9, 10), was her guest and her 
friend ; yet she was in a fret lest dinner should be 
lacking for a household of less than a half-dozen. 

Ah ! it was a want of faith, not of sight, that was 
the trouble with Martha ; that is always the trouble 
with a worrying disciple. If only Martha had had 
Mary's trust, she would have found time and inclina- 
tion to listen to Jesus, — dinner or no dinner. The 
promise of Jesus to his disciples is, " Lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 
28 : 20). He is working wonders continually for 
those who trust him. There are multitudes who, 
through faith in him, do live without worry, who do 
Martha's work in the spirit of Mary. You ought to 
be of that number. 

Lord ! " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee " 
(Isa. 26 : 3), — because he trusteth in thee ! Not be- 
cause everything runs smoothly is the believer kept 
in perfect peace, but because his trust is implicit in 
Jesus, who is over all and in all, however things run. 
When things go wrong in his family, or in his busi- 
ness ; when he is misunderstood or slandered, or 
betrayed ; when he is in sickness or in sorrow, in 
loneliness or in want ; when duties and responsibili- 
ties multiply, — he can trust the Lord for sympathy, 
for support, for guidance; can trust him to provide 



278 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

for him and for his, and to bring good even out of 
what now seems only evil. When, on the other hand, 
all is bright in his home and in his friendships, and 
his business prospers, and his influence extends, and 
he has health and honors and opportunities, — he can 
trust the Lord to give him wisdom and grace to fill 
his place acceptably, and to use his possessions prop- 
erly. He can, indeed, say with Paul, in all heartiness, 
" I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith 
to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I 
know how to abound : every where and in all things I 
am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both 
to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things 
through Christ which strengtheneth me " (Phil. 

4: 11-13). 



PERIL AND POWER THROUGH 
TEMPTATION 



XII 

PERIL AND POWER THROUGH 
TEMPTATION 

Early in my Christian life I learned that no place 
of spiritual privilege lifted one above the possibility 
of temptation. A disciple is liable to be tempted to 
special sins while on his knees in prayer, or while 
engaged in effort to win a soul to Christ, and even 
while sitting with his fellow-disciples at the table of 
Communion with his Saviour. 

This truth I found confirmed in my chaplain ex- 
perience in the army. In consequence, I desired to 
caution Christian soldiers to be on their guard at all 
times against the ever-watchful enemy of their souls. 
I preached in New Berne, North Carolina, in 1862, a 
sermon on the subject of " Peril and Power through 
Temptation," as based on the story of the temptations 
of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 4 : i-i i. This sermon, 
for which I made notes, but which I did not write out, 
I preached again in Columbia Jail, in 1863. Yet later I 
preached it to my regiment before Richmond, in the 
spring of 1864; and I then repeated it, near the same 
place, before the Eleventh Maine regiment of my 
brigade. 

281 



282 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

The truth of this discourse I had occasion to em- 
phasize in prayer-meeting talks and in personal con- 
versation with young believers, at various times, as 
the years passed on. But not until nearly forty years 
from the time of its first preaching did I write out 
this sermon for preaching in a home pulpit. My 
earliest notes, however, gave me reminder of the illus- 
trations as I first gave them, and as I wrote them out 
twoscore years later. The sermon here given is prac- 
tically the same as preached in the camp of my regi- 
ment in New Berne, in 1862, soon after I joined my 
regiment as an inexperienced chaplain and untrained 
preacher. 

I wrote it out for preaching in the pulpit of my 
pastor. Dr. Dana, in the Walnut Street Presbyterian 
Church, Philadelphia. But before the day came when 
I was to preach it, I was stricken down, and became 
practically a " shut-in." So this sermon, as thus 
written out, was the last sermon of my life-work, and 
after being thus written out, it was never preached. 



ADDED DANGERS WITH ADDED BLESSINGS 

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilder- 
ness to be tempted of the devil (Matt. 4:1). 

" Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wil- 
derness to be tempted of the devil." " Then ! " When ? 
After he had been baptized of John in the Jordan, 
and the heavens had been opened above him, and he 
had had a new glimpse of their glories, and he had 
seen the Spirit of God coming down upon him from 
above, and he had heard the loved voice of his Father 
speaking out of the heavens, saying, " This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." " Then,'' 
just then, "was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 
wilderness to be tempted of the devil." 

Marvelous record ! Strange time for such an event! 
Yet this is the Gospel story. 

For thirty years Jesus had been living the lowly 
life of a carpenter's son in Galilee, with no evidence 
in his surroundings that he was heir to a throne, — 
himself a king, and the Son of the King of kings. 
If, in those long years, Jesus had at times been 
tempted to be discouraged, or to doubt, or to be 
impatient, it would not, indeed, have seemed to us 
very strange or improbable ; but now, when he was 

283 



284 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

newly uplifted in spiritual privileges, it does seem 
strange. 

Yet, strange as seems the fact, it is a fact ; and we 
may well learn a lesson for our own course in life 
from this experience of him who is our Example as 
well as our Saviour. If he was approached by the 
tempter in an hour of a spiritual uplift, we must 
expect to be. 

7. Spiritual privileges are often accompanied by spe- 
cial temptations. 

It was while the Hebrews were *' fresh from the 
miracles of the Red Sea and the Nile," and were en- 
camped before the very mountain that flashed and 
smoked with the signs of God's presence, that they 
were tempted to make a golden calf and to bow down 
before it in worship. 

It was from the very supper of the covenant love 
of Jesus with his disciples, that one of those disciples 
went out to betray him. Jesus had just given to 
Judas the sop, or dipped morsel, which was a token 
of favor and fidelity, and it was " after the sop " that 
Satan entered into Judas (John 13 : 27). 

As it was in Bible times, so it is in our day. It is 
when we might suppose ourselves freest from spiritual 
peril, that we have need to watch against special 
temptation. Now as always, " Let him that thinketh 
he standeth take heed lest he fall " (i Cor. 10 : 12). 

A young soldier came to my tent one day in war- 
time, — the Civil War I refer to, — with a heavy heart. 



Peril and Power Through Temptation 285 

" Chaplain," he said, ** I'm discouraged. It don't 
seem to be any use trying to be good. This morning 
I got up before sunrise, and went outside the camp 
into the woods to pray. I asked God to help me do 
right to-day. I had a good time in prayer. I came 
back into camp feeling pretty strong for the day. 
But some one got me mad before breakfast, and soon 
I was swearing and cursing as if I'd never prayed at 
all. It doesn't seem as if praying helped me a bit." 

That young soldier was simply finding that a tem- 
porary spiritual uplift does not raise one above the 
danger of temptation. The fight is from the begin- 
ning to the end ; it is now in days of peace as it was 
in war-time. 

A disciple of Christ often finds that he is specially 
tempted as he goes from the prayer-meeting or the 
Communion table, or from an hour of peculiarly pre- 
cious intercourse with his Saviour in private devotion. 
Nor is this to be in any degree wondered at. 

John Newton says, *' It is the man who is bringing 
his dividend from the bank door who has most cause 
to fear the pilferer's hand." It is the full purse, not 
the empty pocket, that is attractive to the plunderer. 
Or, as an old divine says, ** The Devil strikes at his 
foes, not at his friends." 

There is a sense in which it may be said that the 
nearer we get to the summit the harder we have to 
struggle for the overcoming of difficulties in our up- 
ward spiritual journey. This may seem discouraging 
to one who is just setting out in the Christian life; 



286 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

but those who have been longest on the road will be 
readiest to admit this truth. 

" ' Does the road wind up hill all the way ? * 
' Yes, to the very end.' 
' Will the day's journey take the whole long day? ' 
' From morn to night, my friend.' " ^ 

Yet who would have an easy time slipping down 
hill, in preference to a hard time struggling upward ? 

" Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wil- 
derness to be tempted of the devil," — then, when he 
had reached a lofty height of spiritual privilege. 

2. Temptations may come of a most unexpected char- 
acter. 

This was so in the case of Jesus. " If thou art the 
Son of God," said the tempter. The first suggestion 
was to doubt the Father's word, as if it were " too 
good to be true." So it has been with children of 
God since that day. 

The divine record stands, " Now the man Moses 
was very meek, above all the men which were upon 
the face of the earth (Num. 12:3). Yet, when he 
had reached the zenith of his spiritual power as a 
leader, Moses yielded to the temptation to lose his 
patience with the people whom he led, and in so doing 
he dishonored God before them at the rock of Ka- 
desh (Num. 20 : 7-12). Who would have thought it? 
Who can doubt it? 

Elijah was a bold and daring hero-prophet. He 

1 Christine G. Rossetti. 



Peril and Power Through Temptation 287 



defied king and priest in behalf of his God. He met 
and vanquished the hosts of Baal, putting all their 
priests to the sword. Then when, in the hour of 
spiritual triumph, he seemed above an ordinary man's 
weakness, he was tempted to discouragement and de- 
spair, and he fled like a coward before the threats of 
a woman, and he wanted to die because life seemed 
not worth living (i Kings 18, 19). Who would have 
thought it ! Who can doubt it ? 

Peter was the " rock-man " among the apostles. 
His confident cry to his Master was, " Though all 
men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never 
be offended" (Matt. 26 : 33). And when he was ex- 
plicitly warned of his peril in this direction by that 
Master, Peter " spake the more vehemently. If I 
should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Like- 
wise also said they all " (Mark 14 : 31). Yet that very 
night every one of those confident disciples forsook 
Jesus, and fled in fear for their safety ; and Peter, who 
began by drawing his sword in defence of Jesus (John 
18 : 10), actually stood trembling and lying and swear- 
ing before a servant girl, within sight of that Master 
for whom he declared he was ready to die (Mark 
14 : 66-71). Who would have thought it? Who can 
doubt it ? 

When Jesus was transfigured on the mount (Matt. 
17 : 1-13 ; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9 : 28-36), there ap- 
peared Moses and Elijah with him, and Peter had 
accompanied him to that place of privilege. All 
these had known what it was to meet temptations of 



288 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

an unexpected character in connection with exalted 
spiritual opportunities. Can any later disciple of 
Jesus confidently hope to escape similar trial in this 
life ? "A disciple is not above his master, nor a serv- 
ant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that 
he be as his master, and the servant as his lord " 
(Matt. 10 : 24, 25). 

Temptations are likely to assail us on our strongest 
side, or rather on what we deem our strongest. We 
are, indeed, more likely to be on our guard against 
what are our known weaknesses ; but we may be 
over-confident or careless where we feel strongest. 
This it is that causes our special danger from unex- 
pected temptations. 

When a man says confidently, " If the Lord will 
guard me at other points, I can take care of myself 
with reference to this, or that, particular sin, because 
I can never be tempted in that line," that man needs 
watching, or rather he needs to watch himself. He 
does not know himself, and he may not even be 
known by his fellows. 

" Beware of Peter's word ! 
Nor confidently say, 
' I never will deny the Lord,' 
But, ' Grant I never may.' " 

A loved elder of this church who has entered into 
rest, and who was honored and looked up to by others 
than myself, newly impressed this truth upon me by 
one of his wise utterances. He was one of the clean- 

1 W. Cowper. 



Peril and Power Through Temptation 289 

est and purest spirits I ever knew. It was, therefore, 
something of a surprise to hear him say frankly, as 
he spoke of himself: 

" I never hear of a sin or a crime committed by 
any man, however shocking or horrible it may be, 
without the feeling that / might be capable of doing 
the same thing if I were tempted to it." 

Yet that frank confession, because it was a frank 
confession, only gave me added confidence in that 
noble man. It was because he had no trust in 
his own goodness of nature, or purity of life, or rich 
spiritual experience, and was not therefore thinking 
that he stood firmly, that he was all the less likely to 
fall. 

As we ascend the pathway of life, we do not rise 
above possible and unlooked-for temptations. We 
ought not to feel that because we have never been 
tempted in a certain direction, therefore we never shall 
be, any more than we should because we have been 
tempted many times in a certain line, and have as often 
resisted the temptation. 

Many a soldier of earth, officer or enlisted man, 
who has fought bravely through a dozen battles, has 
shown himself cowardly in the thirteenth. Many 
another who has been courageous in the thirteenth 
has been tempted not to be so. Any old soldier will 
tell you that this is so, even if he cannot explain it. 
As long as we live the life that now is, we are liable 
to encounter temptation, and we have no right to feel 
that we are sure to keep up even to our own highest 



290 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

level of hitherto. Any man's life is likely to have 
surprises in the temptation line, even to the day of 
his death. 

Yet, just here, we ought not to ignore the encour- 
aging fact that 

J. Temptations triumphed over are a means of new 
strength. 

There is no sin in being tempted. It is distinctly 
declared in our text that Jesus was at this time " led 
up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of 
the devil." Surely the Spirit of God did not err in 
leading Jesus to where he would meet temptation ; 
nor did Jesus sin in following the lead of the Spirit 
of God into the place where temptation was to be met. 
Sin is in yielding to temptation, not in meeting it in 
the path of duty where God would have us go. 

There was a gain to Jesus, as our Saviour, in meet- 
ing and battling temptation. He understands our 
case the better in consequence. " For in that he him- 
self hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour 
them that are tempted" (Heb. 2 : 18). He can "be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities," since he 
hath been " in all points tempted like as we are, yet 
without sin " (Heb. 4 : 15, 16). 

Similarly there is a gain to us, not in encountering 
temptation, but in triumphing over it when we are 
called to meet it in the providence of God. A man 
grows strong, not weak, by exercise. His character, 
like his muscle, gains power through effort and strug- 



Peril and Power Through Temptation 291 

gle. Strength and beauty show themselves in the 
form and face of the man who has fought and con- 
quered, without giving way through weakness to 
temptation, as they cannot appear in one whose God- 
given and God-kept spiritual faculties have never 
been called into exercise and tested. Manly virtue 
is more than childhood's innocency, as God sees it, 
or even as man sees it. 

We are not, however, even in view of this truth, to 
seek temptation, or to meet it unnecessarily. When 
Jesus was asked to cast himself down from the temple 
pinnacle in order to be held up supernaturally, he de- 
clared that we must not put God to a test just in order 
to be a gainer by God's help. Temptations come 
often enough to us at the best — as many as we need 
to meet. 

It was after Jesus had had his struggle with temp- 
tation that he taught his disciples to pray, " Lead us 
not into temptation" (Matt. 6 : 13; Luke 11 : 4). 
That clearly enough indicates our duty, whether we 
understand the reason for it or not. Yet we are 
also able to "count it all joy when" we "fall into 
divers temptations " (Jas. 1:2) in the God-led path, 
because of the good result that may follow our resist- 
ing. There is no contradiction in these two things. 
It is not the man who is longing for a fight who is 
bravest in a fight. The bravest man shrinks from a 
battle, unless he realizes that it is his duty to go into 
one. Then, indeed, he may rejoice that he can do good 
and get good through his fighting and his victory. 



292 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

God is more interested in us than we are in our- 
selves. God understands us better than we understand 
ourselves. God will measure our strength and our 
temptations if we will follow as he leads. He knows 
just what temptations we are best fitted to meet, or 
are to be the greater gainers through resisting. Thus 
it is now ; thus it ever has been in our course. 
" There hath no temptation taken you [at God's call] 
but such as is common to man : but God is faithful, 
who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
are able ; but [he] will with the temptation also make 
a way to escape [or supply the means and power of 
resistance], that ye may be able to bear it" (i Cor. 
10: 13). 

Many a tempted believer has come to feel the truth 
of this. Out of my own experience I can bear testi- 
mony to it. At one time, while I was engaged in spe- 
cial religious work, I found myself tried and tempted 
in an unusual way. I could not account for it. I 
had often been before, as I have often been since, 
tempted in ways that I could account for only too 
well ; but this was a different matter. It gave me un- 
rest and perplexity day and night ; and neither prayer, 
nor effort at calmness of mind or spirit, seemed to be 
of any avail. 

At last, in my worry, I dropped on my knees before 
God, and cried out to him for help. I told him that 
I was being drawn aside from his work to battle with 
a temptation that I was not responsible for, and which 
was in a direction where I had no inclination to go 



Peril and Power Throng h Temptation 293 

astray. I said that it forced me to a struggle that 
seemed unnecessary, yet was very real, and I asked 
him if he would not give me relief from the struggle, 
so that I could be wholly in his work which so pressed 
just then. 

And God's answer seemed to come even while I 
prayed. God said — that is, God impressed upon me 
the truth — that he could at once relieve me from that 
struggle with that temptation; but which would I 
prefer, present relief with the loss of the added charac- 
ter through the struggle, or a continuance of the strug- 
gle, and of his grace sustaining me in it, with the result 
of more manhood as a consequence ? 

Instantly I replied, in my heart, " Lord, let it be as 
thou wilt. Give me added manhood, even if I have to 
fight temptation all the time in order to get it." 

As I then rose contented from my knees, I found 
that the temptation was gone, and so was the worry. 
It maybe that it had already done its work for me for 
then — as God saw my case. 

God will give us gain through conquered tempta- 
tions if we will but trust him utterly — as we have 
need to. And this brings us to the thought, or the 
truth, of our hope of triumph when we are tempted. 

^. Victory over temptation comes through a sense of 
weakness. 

Even Jesus, after his victory over his temptations 
in the wilderness, said with reference to his depend- 
ence, while in his humanity, on his Father as the 



294 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

source of all strength, " I can of myself do nothing " 
(John 5 : 30). Yet, on the other hand, Paul says con- 
fidently in his dependence on that same source of 
help, " I can do all things [that I ought to do] through 
Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4 : 13). 

Paul learned that lesson out of his own trying ex- 
perience, as he tells us. When he prayed for more 
strength of his own for God's work, God's answer 
was, " My grace " — not your strength, but " my grace 
is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made perfect 
[or complete] in weakness " (2 Cor. 12:9). God is 
readiest to help that child of his who feels that he is so 
weak that he can not get on without God, not the one 
who thinks he is strong enough to fight through alone. 

When Paul had learned this lesson, he was ready to 
say, " Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my 
infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon 
me. . . . For when I am weak, then am I strong " (2 
Cor. 12:9, 10). Nor was Paul the only child of God 
to reahze this truth. It was thus with those who 
went before him, and it has been thus with those who 
have come after him. " Time would fail me to tell of 
Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jeph- 
thah ; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets : 
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of 
lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge 
of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of 
the aHens" (Heb. 11 : 32-34). 



Peril and Power Through Temptation 295 

Feeling a sense of his weakness in himself, and 
resting confidently on Him who is mighty, not only 
to save but to uphold, day by day, the child of God 
can meet every temptation which he encounters in 
the path of duty in ordinary daily life, whether it be 
a common temptation or a temptation as unlooked- 
for as it is severe. He may have resisted the tempta- 
tion many times before, and yet have to fight the old 
fight over again. He may never have met it until 
now, and therefore be surprised that it comes in just 
this shape at this time. In either case his strength is 
found in his sense of his weakness, for when he is 
weak then is he strong. God will give him victory 
through faith. 

There is yet another case which makes a harder 
fight than either of these. Temptation is sometimes 
fiercest when a man or a woman has already given 
way to it until the will is weak to resist the often in- 
dulged propensity. Yet God can give strength to one 
who has fallen seven times, or seventy times seven, 
and that soul may yet have victory, if it will but turn 
again and cling trustingly to the arm that is mighty 
to save in even that emergency. 

Let me give an illustration of this truth that was 
impressed on my mind most forcefully, as I heard it 
told by John B. Gough many years ago. 

Mr. Gough was, on one occasion, lecturing to the 
outcasts of Glasgow, gathered to hear him by the city 
missionaries, with the assurance given by the civil 
authorities that no one should be arrested while in 



296 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

quiet attendance there that evening. The provost of 
the city was by Mr. Gough's side on the platform. 

The roughest and vilest of the city were there. A 
woman, popularly known as " Hell Fire," was among 
them. The city provost told Mr. Gough that she had 
been arrested scores of times, and she was so violent 
when drunk that he never sent one policeman alone 
to arrest her. She sat before the lecturer and lis- 
tened to his words. As he told of the curse of rum, 
and of the sufferings of the drunkard, she cried out, 
" True, mon. It's a' true." And again, '* How d' ye 
ken it a', mon? " 

When an opportunity for the signing of the pledge 
came, and Mr. Gough gave the invitation, she stepped 
forward and asked to sign. A bystander said that 
she'd not keep a pledge until midnight. At this she 
squared away toward him for a fight. Mr. Gough 
appealed to her, and asked if she could keep the 
pledge. 

" If I say I wull, I con." 

" Will you say you will ? " 

" I wull." 

" Then give me your hand on it." 

She took Mr. Gough's hand, and then signed the 
pledge. Mr. Gough said to her, " May God help you 
to keep it, my good woman." And he left her. 

" Two years after that evening I was again in Glas- 
gow," said Mr. Gough, " and I saw her once more, — 
no longer ' Hell Fire,' but respected ' Mrs, Archer.' 
I sat down at the tea-table with her and her daughter 



Peril and Power Through Temptation 297 

in their humble Scotch home. She told me of the 
struggles she had had in her purpose of keeping the 
pledge in those two years, and of her triumphs by the 
help of God. But sometimes, she said, she would 
dream in the night that she was drunk as of old, and 
then she would get up and go down on her knees and 
cry out in prayer, ' God keep me ! God keep me ! 
I canna get drunk ony main' 

"Her daughter added, 'Yes, Mr. Gough, I'll wake 
in the night, and I'll hear mither cry, on her knees, 
" God keep me. God keep me. I canna get drunk 
ony mair; " and I'll call to her, ** Come back to bed, 
mither. You'll take your death o' could." And she'll 
say to me, " No, no, I've been drameing I was drunk 
again, and I'm praying and crying, ' God keep me ! 
God keep me! I canna get drunk ony mair.'" ' 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Gough, " it was not the pledge 
that had kept her, but it was her faith that sounded 
out in the cry of her heart continually, * God keep 
me! God keep me! I canna get drunk ony mair.'" 

And this is the hope of the tempted soul, whether 
he be one who has grown stronger by long resistance, 
or one who has been weakened by frequent yielding. 
He is truly strong only when he is consciously weak. 

Here also is our best lesson from the recorded fact 
in our text. " Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit 
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil;" "For 
in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is 
able to succour them that are tempted" (Heb. 2 : 18). 



VICTORIOUS IN DEATH AND IN LIFE 



xm 

VICTORIOUS IN DEATH AND IN LIFE 

In all active service in human warfare, victory is 
the chief thing struggled for. It is victory that is de- 
sired, it is victory that is hoped for, it is victory that 
is to be rejoiced in. There may be, indeed, an ulti- 
mate good that is to be attained through a long war, 
in which battle after battle is fought at terrible cost of 
life and limb, and at a fearful outlay by the powers 
engaged ; but this can come only as a result of 
victory. Therefore, to the soldiers in active warfare 
it is victory that has the first thought and place in all 
their doing and their enduring. 

And veteran soldiers in our Civil War learned that 
those who lived through a battle had more yet to do 
and to endure than those who fell in that fight. One 
who lived worthily and who fell at his post, dying as 
he had lived, was a victor beyond the necessity of 
another struggle. But a soldier who lived through 
one battle in that long war had to realize that he must 
be ready to meet other dangers, from which his fallen 
comrades were spared. Hence a lesson of a veteran 
soldier's experience was that living is, on this account, 
more to be dreaded than dying. Many a soldier at 

301 



302 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

the close of a battle, in that sadly prolonged war, felt 
in his weakness and exhaustion that his fallen com- 
rades were happily spared the renewed fights which he 
must enter. Yet as a true soldier he realized that it 
was his duty to brave living with its penalties and 
ever-renewed outlays, as well as dying with its final 
victory. And this conviction was the truest test and 
climax of the right-minded soldier. 

In home life, as in army service, I found occasion 
to consider this truth and to emphasize it before my 
fellows. Hence there grew this sermon as to our 
Saviour's assurance that those living in him shall have 
victory in living and in dying. 



NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE 

" For I am persuaded^ that neither deaths nor life^ 
nor angelSy nor principalities^ nor powers^ nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord'' (Rom. 
8 : 38, 39)- 

"I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life " — 
" neither death, nor life " ! Death stands over against 
life in ceaseless hostility, here in a world where all 
who are not mourning their dead are themselves 
struggling to live. 

In the ancient Roman theaters, on the occasion of 
the gladiatorial games, the contestants, who had en- 
tered the arena for its life-and-death struggles, were 
accustomed to pass in review before the seat of the 
Imperial *' Editor," or Exhibitor, of the games, and, 
while still in the flush of strength and of bounding 
life, to say, in conscious recognition of their impend- 
ing doom, " Morituri saluta^nus f' **We who are 
about to die, salute you!" And this grim salutation 
of the battle-arrayed gladiators might well be that of 
all of us, whenever we leave our homes of a morning, 
or return to our loved ones of an evening ; or when 

303 



304 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

we part with those who are dear to us, for even the 
briefest vacation, or other absence ; and so when they 
and we are come together again in gladness : '' Mori- 
turi salutamus !'' "We who are about to die, salute 
you ! " 

Already we are within the arena of conflict; we 
are moving steadily toward the climax of the strug- 
gle ; and, in more than a poetic sense, our pulsing 
heart-throbs are the muffled drum-beats of the funeral 
march. 

You and I are facing death, here in this house this 
morning, — you in your place, and I in mine ; and 
there is reason why, in the strictest literalism, I should 
now preach to you 

" As never sure to preach again, 
And as a dying man, to dying men." ^ 

It is old Flavel, I think, who has corrected so force- 
fully the common thought of our nearness to death. 
We speak of death, he says, as a precipice, toward 
whose brink we are moving blindly. That brink may 
be just before us, or it may be still at a distance. 
When we reach it, one step is our last. That is our 
thought. But, no, he adds, death is not a precipice 
between which and ourselves there is a possible, 
though an uncertain distance ; death is a precipice 
along the edge of which we have been moving, in 
blindness, from our very birth. At this moment, as 
always, there is but a step between us and death (i 
Sam. 20 : 3). 

1 Richard Baxter. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 305 

And death, thus ever-proximate, is always and only 
our enemy. Death is not, can not be, a friend. We 
may defy death. We may even come to long for or 
to welcome death. We may be sure of triumph over 
death. But neither our courage, our craving, nor our 
confidence, can change the hostile attitude of death. 
** The last enemy that shall be destroyed ['abolished,' 
the Revision renders it,] is death" (i Cor. 15 : 26); 
the last enemy that shall be abolished, but that remains 
as an enemy yet awhile. That is the way the Bible 
states it ; and that is the way we are very likely to 
view it — in our testing-times. 

When we look into the faces of our dead dear 
ones, and when we stand above their sodded graves, 
we say, instinctively, *' An enemy hath done this" 
(Matt. 13 : 28). Even the certainty of their joy im- 
mortal can not make their absence our mortal joy. 

" Immortal ? I feel it, and know it ; 
Who doubts it of such as she ? 
But that is the pang's very secret, — 
Immortal away from me. 

" There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard, 
Would scarce stay a child in his race ; 
But to me and my thought it is wider 
Than the star-sown vague of space. 

*' Your logic, my friend, is perfect, 
Your morals most drearily true : 
But since the earth fell on her coffin, 
I keep hearing that, and not you. 



3o6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

" Console if you will, I can bear it : 
'Tis a well-meant alms of breath : 
But not all the preaching since Adam 
Has made death other than death." ^ 

But it is deaths — this death which can not seem 
** other than death;" this death which confronts us 
all and always as our enemy, — this death it is against 
which the faith-inspired Apostle rings out, jubilantly, 
in his confident climax of defiance : ** I am persuaded, 
that neither death, nor life, . . . nor any other creature 
[any other created thing], shall be able to separate us 
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord." 

There are some things which death can not do, 
even at its worst. Death can not separate either the 
dead believer or the living believer from his Saviour. 
Jesus came into this world of the dying, and passed 
out from it through the gates of death into the world 
of the undying. He knows what it is to sorrow over 
the work of death, to shrink from death, and to suffer 
death. He is familiar with the weakness and with the 
needs of his loved ones here, who are appointed to 
die. He feels with them tenderly, and his presence 
and help are assured to them unto the end. " Let 
not your heart be troubled," he says. " In my 
Father's house are many mansions. ... I go 
[on before you] to prepare a place for you. . . . 
And . , . where I am, there ye may be also " (John 

14 : 1-3). 

1 James Russell Lowell. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 307 

However and wherever the chasm of death is to be 
crossed by a beHever, Jesus, from beyond it, will give 
help and cheer to his follower, on this side of it and 
in its crossing. And the overleaping of that chasm 
will not separate the Guide and his follower, but will 
only unite them the more closely, and forever. 

While climbing the upper summits of the moun- 
tains of Sinai, I was led by an Arab guide who was 
familiar with every step of the perilous way. Finally 
we came to the edge of a threatening precipice of 
granite, which sloped away from our very feet far 
down to a yawning ravine of jagged rocks below. 
Closer and closer to that dizzy edge lay our narrow 
path, until the path actually lost itself, at a point 
where a jutting crag before us seemed to forbid all 
passage, unless directly over the mad precipice itself 
And there my guide disappeared, for the moment. 
He had swung himself around that crag, over that 
bewildering cliff, and was now at the base of a 
mountain dome, above and beyond the path he 
had left. 

As I stood for a moment, with whirling brain, at 
that appalling brink of death, I saw, just above and 
before me, the wiry feet of my trusty guide beyond 
that jutting crag ; and I heard his voice calling out 
cheerily : ** Cling to my feet, and swing yourself over 
the pass ! I can hold you ! Have no fear ! " 

It was not a tempting thing to do. But it was that 
or nothing. I caught at those sturdy ankles with a 
grip as for my life ! A moment's stay of breath ! 



3o8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

One spring along the frightful edge ! The crag and 
the chasm were passed, and I and my guide were to- 
gether on the unchanging rock — where the crown of 
that mountain of God w^as ours. 

So with us all, as we clamber the steeps of earth, 
under the guidance of him who has passed every step 
of the way before. When at last our narrow path 
is skirting the brink of the yawning grave, and the 
forbidding crag of death juts before us, and we realize, 
for the moment, that our Guide has gone over be- 
yond that crag, — even then we can hear the voice 
of Jesus, calling to us cheerily, "■ Come unto me ! 
I will uphold thee!" And, clinging with the grip 

of faith to 

" Those blessed feet 
Which eighteen hundred years ago were nail'd 
For our advantage on the bitter cross," ^ 

We can, with one instant's bated breath, and with a 
single swing of soul, pass beyond death, to stand with 
our Guide on the enduring rock of the eternal hills 
of God. 

If, indeed, for a moment, at such a crisis, we are 
*'in a strait betwixt two," whether to stay or to go, 
faith tells us surely, that "■ to depart, and to be with 
Christ," is very ''far better" (Phil, i : 23). There- 
fore it is that ** Precious in the sight of the Lord is 
the death of his saints" (Psa. 116 : 15). Therefore it 
is that the believer can cry triumphantly, in the face 
of death as his enemy, " I am persuaded, that neither 

1 Shakespeare. 



Victoinous in Death and in Life 309 

death, nor life, . . . nor any other creature, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." 

It is, indeed, that very love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord, that permits the dying of any 
of Christ's dear ones. Herodotus tells, from Solon, 
a touching story of Biton and Cleobis, two noble 
young sons of a priestess of Juno. They were cele- 
brated for their devoted affection to their mother. 
On a great feast-day of Juno, they insisted on draw- 
ing their mother in her chariot to the temple, a dis- 
tance of six miles or so. The populace applauded 
their filial affection. The mother w^as gratefully proud 
of their loving devotedness. 

Taking those sons with her into the temple where 
she ministered, that mother prayed for them to the 
goddess whom she served. Not wealth, nor honors, 
nor long life, she asked for them, specifically, but her 
prayer was that the goddess would grant to them 
just that which the goddess should know to be the 
best of all gifts for sons so worthy. Having thus 
prayed, the mother fell calmly asleep, with her sons 
near her, within the temple precincts. 

When the morning came, those two sons were dead. 
The mother's prayer for them had been answered. 
The best gift of the goddess was theirs. 

Are not the love and the wisdom of our God as 
real and as great as are those of the Pagan goddess ? 
Aye ! ** I heard a voice from heaven saying, . . . 
Write, Blessed are the dead w^hich die in the Lord 



3 1 o Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may 
rest from their labours ; and their works do follow 
them " (Rev. 14: 13). 

Nor does the death of one's dear ones — any more 
than the death of one's self — separate the believer 
from his Saviour, or lessen his sense of that Saviour's 
loving nearness. On the contrary, eveiy fatal blow 
of the enemy of life attaches with a new link the sur- 
vivors in the conflict to the commander in whose 
service is the fighting and the falling. 

Look at that familiar picture of the veterans of 
Waterloo gathered for the last time in their annual 
reunion with the Iron Duke. Is there a barrier, or is 
there a bond of union, between those war-worn cap- 
tains and their great commander, in the fact that at 
his call they and he faced death together on a field 
where those whom they loved were stricken down in 
his loyal service ? 

Ah ! my friends, I tell you there is no such loving 
devotedness of soldiers toward any commander who 
has been over them only in the days of peace, or at 
times of parade, as toward one who has led them 
in a score of hard-fought battles — out of which 
they have come alive, but bronzed and scarred 
for life. 

Aye ! and there is no such bond of human com- 
radeship as that which joins in heart-fellowship those 
who have stood shoulder to shoulder in the shock of 
battle, and who have wept together over those who 
there fell from their sides. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 311 

^1 — _ — . «•. . 

" Ho ! comrades of the camp and field, 
What though the world be wide ! 
The hands that met above the dead, 
Earth never can divide." ^ 

So, likewise, there is added love for Christ, in the 
believer's heart, through each glimpse of Christ in the 
hour of a dear one's death-struggle ; and there is a 
closer bond of Christian fellowship between those who 
have mourned their dead together. 

He who would enter the innermost chambers of 
Christ's ministering love, must pass through the death- 
room of those who are dearer than life to him. Only 
thus can he realize the fulness of the beatitude : 
" Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be com- 
forted " (Matt. 5 : 4). Only thus can he be able to 
say, out of his sanctified experience, '' Blessed be the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
of mercies and God of all comfort ; who comforteth 
us in all our affliction, that we may be able to com- 
fort them that are in any affliction, through the com- 
fort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God " 
(2 Cor. I : 3, 4). 

'* Even here 
From his dear children's eyes, God wipes the tear ; 
And who would mourn a tear should fill his eye 

For God to dry ? 
Angels might envy man his tearful eyes 

When God's hand dries." ^ 

Heaven is nearer to those whose dear ones are 

» M. A. Lathbury. 2 a. E. Hamilton. 



312 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

already there, and Christ is dearer to those whose 
best loved ones have entered into his rest. 

Aye ! and those who for the first time mourn their 
own dead, are, by that very experience, brought into 
a holy fellowship of Christian sorrow and Christian 
sympathy and Christian comfort, the benefits of which 
no unbereaved soul is privileged to share. 

No ! No ! Whatever else is the power of death as 
an enemy, "I am persuaded, that" not ''deaths . . . 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

" Neither death, nor life " ! Mark that ! Death 
first, and then life, in the ascending order of dangers 
which confront the Christian believer. Nor is this an 
anti-climax in the plan of the inspired Apostle, for 
death is ever a lesser danger than life, in the experi- 
ence of the disciple of Jesus. 

Dying is but a minor matter, at the worst. A mo- 
ment, and all is over. Its one struggle is the last. 
But to live on, with a new struggle every day, and with 
no end to the fighting, is a very different matter, at 
the best. 

" Blessed are those who die for God, 

And earn the martyr's crown of light ; 
Yet he who lives for God may be 
A greater conqueror in his sight." ^ 

While I was a prisoner of war in South Carolina, I 
met a brave and determined Southern officer, who 

1 A, A. Proctor. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 313 

spoke in intensest earnestness of the inflexible pur- 
pose of his people to resist all efforts at their subju- 
gation. When the war was over, I was again in South 
Carolina, and I met the same officer once more. 

Greeting me pleasantly at this time, he said : 

" I little thought, when we met last, that the war 
would end as it did. But we were ready for the 
end long before it came ! It was your General 
Grant who wore us out. We could stand anything 
but his eternal pound, pound, pound. We would 
gladly have gone into one great battle, or another, to 
fight the thing out. But he just pounded right 
straight along, with no let-up. If we whipped him 
one day, he was at it just the same the next morning. 
A victory didn't seem to help us any more than a 
defeat. It was just fight, fight, fight, every day of 
the year, no matter what came of the fighting. We 
couldn't stand that, and so we longed for the end to 
come." 

And that is the sort of fighting which wears out 
the best and the bravest soldiers, in any line of war- 
fare ; or which taxes their courage most sorely, if it 
does not wear them out. It is not the one death- 
struggle, but the ceaseless life-struggles, that the 
stoutest heart shrinks from. 

It is the meeting the same temptations over and 
over again. It is the finding one's self weak at one's 
strongest point, and again the being assailed unex- 
pectedly just where one is weakest. It is the failing 
to find any perceptible gain through a score of vie- 



3 1 4 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

tories over a foe which comes up only the more vig- 
orous after every fresh defeat. It is the seeing that 
those who are stronger than one's self are over- 
borne in the fiftieth contest, when they had fought 
through forty-nine similar fights without a failure. It 
is the strangeness of God's way of letting those who 
love him battle on without a conclusive triumph in 
any one contest — once for all. It is the ceaseless 
mystery of the life that is, with so much power per- 
mitted to evil, and such seeming advantages for the 
time to the adversaries of Christ and of Christ's dear 
ones. 

It was one of the sweetest-spirited of Christian sing- 
ers who said, wearily : 

" Oh, it is hard to work for God, 
To rise and take his part 
Upon this battle-field of earth, 
And not sometimes lose heart ! 

" He hides himself so wondrously, 
As though there were no God ; 
He is least seen when all the powers 
Of ill are most abroad ; 

** Or he deserts us in the hour 
The fight is all but lost ; 
And seems to leave us to ourselves 
Just when we need him most. 

" Oh, there is less to try our faith 
In our mysterious creed 
Than in the godless look of earth 
In these our hours of need." * 

IF. W. Faber. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 315 

Do you question the courage, or the character of 
believers who yield to feelings of this sort, at any 
point in their life-struggle ? Some pretty strong men 
in the world's history, some stalwart sons of God, 
have felt that way, whether you and I have always 
been above such weakness or not. 

It was none other than Moses, — Moses, the meek 
and majestic man of God, — who, after seeing all the 
miracles of Jehovah in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the 
desert, and at Mount Sinai, and after actually com- 
muning with God ''face to face, as a man speaketh 
unto his friend " (Exod. 33 : 11), was so weaiy of his 
prolonged conflict with evil, that he was tempted to 
give up both his struggle and his charge, and his tired 
moan to God for death was, *' I am not able to bear 
all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. 
And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, 
out of hand [off-hand, outright], if I have found favour 
in thy sight ; and let me not see [no longer see] my 
wretchedness" (Num. 11 : 14, 15). 

It was the even-minded patriarch, Job, — Job, 
whom God himself pointed out as foremost among 
the sons of men for uprightness and for fidelity, — 
who, having bowed himself in loving submissiveness 
under stroke after stroke of bitter calamity, wilted at 
last, under the continuing pressure upon him, and 
longed for the end to come. ** Oh that I might have 
my request," he cried; ''and that God would grant 
me the thing that I long for ! Even that it would 
please God to destroy me ; that he would let loose 



3 1 6 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

his hand, and cut me off! Then should I yet have 
comfort" (Job 6 : 8-io) in death, if not in Hfe. 

It was heroic EHjah, the rugged old prophet of 
Israel, who — after receiving proof that God was ready 
to open or to close the heavens, or even to raise the 
dead to life, at his cry for help ; and after triumphing 
gloriously in his single-handed defiance of the four 
hundred and fifty prophets of Baal — was too weak 
to bear up without wincing under the ceaseless 
** pound, pound, pound," of his persistent opposers ; 
and who, hurrying into the wilderness, threw himself 
despondently under the scanty shade of a retem bush, 
** and he requested for himself that he might die ; and 
[he] said. It is enough [it is too much] ; now, O Lord, 
take away my life ; for I am not better than my fathers 
[I make no gain in living on] " (i Kings 19:4). 

It was that most courageous of all the God-called 
and faith-filled followers of Christ, Paul the Apostle, 
who, after enduring unflinchingly " in journeyings 
often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils 
from" his ** countrymen [the Jews], in perils from the 
Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilder- 
ness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false^ breth- 
ren ; in labour and travail, in watchings often, in 
hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and na- 
kedness " (2 Cor. 1 1 : 26, 27), and who, being still 
kept at the tireless task of battling his own body 
daily, lest after all his trials and triumphs he should 
yet become *' a castaway" (i Cor. 9 : 27) ; he it was 
who cried out, in all earnestness, that "to depart, and 



Victoinous hi Death and in Life 317 

to be with Christ " would be " far better " (Phil, i : 23) 
than to live on "at this poor dying rate;" and who 
was sure that for himself, whatever it was " to live," 
*'to die" would be a "gain" (Phil, i : 21). 

Aye ! and many another believer, since the days of 
this apostle, has realized how much harder it is to live 
than it would be to die ; how much greater are the dan- 
gers of living than of dying — to one who is ready to die. 

Unless, indeed, you and I have more sublime pa- 
tience than Job, more sanctified meekness than Moses, 
more stalwart courage than Elijah, more holy zeal and 
faith than Paul, we also are liable to similar weari- 
ness and shrinkings, in our life-struggle, — unless, per- 
chance, it be the case that our lack of strength of 
character forbids to us the possibilities of such 
strength, in either direction — of action, or of reaction. 

A while ago I sat by the dying bedside of a dear girl 
in my Philadelphia home. As I held her hand, which, 
all unconsciously to herself, the damp of death was 
already chilling, she said to me with soulful earnest- 
ness : " Dr. Trumbull, Pm not one bit afraid to die. 
I know that Jesus is my Saviour, and if I should die 
now, he would take me right to himself. But Pm 
expecting to get well, and that's what troubles me. 
When Pm up again, will Jesus give me strength to 
live all the time as I ought to live ? " 

And I tell you, my friends, those words did not 
show spiritual weakness on the part of that dear young 
disciple. On the contrary, they showed her spiritual 
discernment. As she lay there, between living and 



3 1 8 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

dying, she realized that to die was a lesser danger 
than to live ; that the one death-struggle was a small 
thing in comparison with a long series of life-strug- 
gles. And in this she was at one with Paul, and Elijah, 
and Job, and Moses, and many another child of God, 
in the olden time and in the later ; for to them and to 
her, and to every spiritually illumined soul, death has 
fewer dangers than life to the believer in Jesus, be- 
cause here, in the life that now is, our wrestling is 
*'not [alone] against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in 
high places " (Eph. 6 : 12). 

But life also — life with all its perils — has its limita- 
tions of power for harm to him who is joined by 
faith with that Saviour whose loving power is limit- 
less. It is to life, as well as to death, that Paul bids 
defiance in the triumphant ascription of our text: *'I 
am persuaded that neither death, nor life," — neither 
death the lesser peril, nor life the larger; neither 
death with its single danger, nor life with its dangers 
upon dangers, — *' neither death, nor life, nor angels, 
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

There are ten Bible promises to the living where 
there is one Bible promise to the dying ; ten prom- 
ises for the life that is, where there is one promise for 
the life to come ; ten promises of strength in the bat- 



Victorious in Death and in Life 319 

tie of life to one promise of joy after life's battle is 
over. If, therefore, life's struggles are harder than 
the struggle of death, the promises of help in the 
struggles of life are correspondingly more prominent 
in the Word of God. 

Aye ! there is never a peril to the Christian believer 
in his life-course, over against which there does not 
stand a divine token of assurance and cheer to the 
imperiled one. 

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, 
or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? . . . Nay, in all 
these things we are more than conquerors through 
him that loved us" (Rom. 8 : 35-37). 

You say that you are spiritually weak, that you lack 
strength for life's battlings. Christ's cheering assur- 
ance comes to you : '' My grace is sufficient for thee : 
for my power is made perfect in weakness " (2 Cor. 
1 2 : 9) — my power is shown at its fulness in disciples 
who are so weak as to feel helpless without me. 

You say that temptations press you on every side, 
and you are afraid they will overbear you at some 
point. '' There hath no temptation taken you but such 
as man can bear : but God is faithful, who will not suf- 
fer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will 
with the temptation make also the way of escape, that 
ye may be able to endure it" (i Cor. 10 : 13). 

You say that it is not so much the greatness of any 
one temptation, as the incessant pressure of repeated 
temptations. You are growing tired and faint undet 



320 Shoes and Rations for a Lo7tg March 

the ceaseless "■ pound, pound, pound," on your over- 
taxed forces. *' He giveth power to the faint ; and to 
them that have no might he increaseth strength " 
(Isa. 40: 29). 

You say that you can stand it yet awhile, with the 
strength that is now given you ; but you shrink from 
the possibilities of the future, if the coming years are 
to bring no let-up to the strain upon you. Hear 
God's loving response to this mistrusting: ''Even to 
old age I am he, and even to hoar hairs will I carry 
you : I have made, and I will bear ; yea, 1 will carry, 
and will deliver" (Isa. 46: 4). 

You say that even though you are kept up in your 
life-battlings, you lack that fellow-help, and that per- 
sonal sympathy, which you used to think you could 
depend on ; for so many a trusted one has changed, 
or has failed you, while those from whom you hoped 
most have disappointed you, — that you now seem 
really alone in your strugglings. His answer comes 
tenderly : '' I the Lord change not " (Mai. 3 : 6). '* As 
one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort 
you" (Isa. 66: 13). ''I will not fail thee, nor for- 
sake thee " (Josh. 1:5). 

Who can despair, in the face of such promises ? 

After all, the believer's life-course is only one step 
at a time, and eveiy step onward is also a step up- 
ward; for 

" The road winds up hill all the way, 
Yes, to the very end." ^ 

1 Christine G. Rossetti. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 321 

At the severest, the behever's endurance is only 
minute by minute, and every improved minute is an 
attainment for eternity. 

" Do not look at life's long sorrow ; 
See how small each moment's pain. 
God will help thee for to-morrow : 
So, each day begin again. 

** Every hour that fleets so slowly 
Has its task to do or bear. 
Luminous the crown, and holy, 
When each gem is set with care."^ 

Added life-battlings give not only added dangers, 
but also added possibilities of victory and of glory. 
Every new triumph in the life that is, is an acquisition 
for the life to come ; not by way of reward, but by 
way of development; not in enlarged merit, but in 
expanded character. 

These conflicts of soul, which furrow the face, and 
which whiten the hair, and which rack the very heart 
of hearts, endear a disciple to his Saviour and fit 
him for greater joys and for higher honors in that 
Saviour's presence — ^when the war is over. Aye ! 
and they give him increased efficiency while the war 
is still in progress. 

There is one token of a soldier's standing which no 
gold can purchase, no favor can win, nor can even the 
government itself confer it as an act of grace ; and 
that is the ''service-chevron," a little strip of lace upon 
the soldier's sleeve, which marks a completed full period 

1 A. A. Proctor. 



32 2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

of army enlistment, — of two years, or three, or five, it 
may be. . And when a uniform shows two, or five, or 
possibly even ten, of these "service-chevrons," there 
is an added character to the veteran who wears it, — a 
character which can come only of experience in hard 
campaigning, a character which is sure to show itself 
in the bronzed face, in the compacted muscles, and in 
the whole manly bearing of the soldier-hero. 

The Queen may put her royal son into the army, 
in a place of high command, and she can multiply his 
decorations, which are proofs of her royal favor; but 
she can never give him a '* service-chevron," or a rib- 
bon or a medal which marks an honorably completed 
campaign, until he has served and battled all a cam- 
paign through. And right alongside of that fair-faced 
prince-royal, with his uniform showily bedecked with 
its peace-won honors, there may stand a veteran offi- 
cer with an armless sleeve, and a sightless eye, and a 
sabre-slashed cheek, and a breast hung over with 
battle-medals, who shall deserve, and shall have, the 
praise of all observers, for his service and his achieve- 
ments, beyond all that is conceded to the honored son 
of the sovereign. 

So in the service of the King of kings. The fair- 
faced child may be promoted by the Sovereign's grace, 
and stand in heaven 

" A victor, ere he drew a sword ; 
Before he toiled, at rest." 

But he can never be the veteran of a hundred fights, 
without fighting through battle a hundred times. 



Victorious in Death and in Life 323 

Moreover, in life's battlings, each faithfully com- 
pleted period of enlistment adds a service-chevron to 
the uniform of both the inner and the outer man, to 
mark the hero-veteran before all the world. 

" Every wrinkled, care-worn brow 

Bears the record, Something done ! 
Some time, somewhere, then or now, 
Battles lost, or battles won." 

Thank God, then, tha.t }/ou are permitted to live on 
and become veterans, instead of having promotion 
without a term of active service. And at the open- 
ing of every new conflict before you, look forward 
hopefully to a new victory and a new attainment. As 
Admiral Nelson said confidently, when the battle of 
the Nile was beginning, " Here's for a peerage, or 
Westminster Abbey ! " So you can say, with sublimer 
confidence, as the combat thickens about you, ** Here's 
for a higher stand in Christ, or for final rest with 
Christ!" 

Ah ! it is even glorious to live on in life's painful 
battlings, so long as Christ wants us to fight; as, 
again, it is blessed to die, when Christ calls us to rest 
from this fighting. And, surely, if he honors us by 
trusting our fidelity in prolonged campaigning, we 
ought to honor him by trusting his fidelity in sustain- 
ing us until our campaigning is over. 

''Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, 
that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, 
having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having 
girded your loins with truth, and having put on the 



324 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your 
feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; 
withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye 
shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
evil one" (Eph. 6: 13-16). 

'* Dread not the din and smoke, 

The stifling poison of the fiery air ; 
Courage ! It is the battle of thy God ; 
Stand ! and for him learn how to do and dare. 

"What though ten thousand fall ! 

And the red field with the dear dead be strewn ; 
Grasp but more bravely thy bright shield and sword; 
Fight to the last, although thou fight' st alone. 

"What though ten thousand faint. 

Desert, or yield, or in weak terror flee ! 
Heed not the panic of the multitude ; 
Thine be the Captain's watchword, — 
Victory! "1 

And ''thanks be to God, which giveth us the vic- 
tory [in death and in life\ through our Lord Jesus 
Christ"! Amen. 

1 H. Bonar. 



REJOICING IN PEACE 



XIV 

REJOICING IN PEACE 

Only the boy who has been away from home long 
enough to be really homesick knows how to appre- 
ciate the privilege and delights of home. Only the 
soldier who has fought and endured, and suffered the 
privations and disappointments and deferred hopes of 
a prolonged war, knows how to appreciate and to re- 
joice in finally attained peace. It is impossible for 
the young in these glad days to understand what were 
the feelings of the Union soldiers when peace finally 
came after the four long years of our Civil War. 

When, after Appomattox Court-House, our brigade 
returned to Richmond, and was given a position, for 
rest and guard duty, in the suburbs of the long- 
besieged capital of the Confederacy, the rejoicings of 
officers and men were unbounded and overwhelming. 
No more fightings, no more privations, no more fears, 
no more enemies for us. Peace had come. What 
more was there to long for now ? The national flag 
waved over the Confederate capital. Our military 
department commander had his headquarters in the 
residence of *' President" Jefferson Davis. Federal 
guards moved undisturbed before the home of Gen- 

327 



328 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

eral Lee, and had their stations in Libby Prison, in 
Castle Thunder, and on Belle Island. On all sides 
were evidences of victory and of peace. It was almost 
too good to be true. Yet it was all true, while it was 
more than good. 

It was then that I wrote and preached to my regi- 
ment, which was stationed just north of Richmond, a 
sermon on Peace. By special request I repeated this 
sermon before the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regi- 
ment, which was on guard in the city, and the com- 
mander of which was in charge of Libby Prison, 
where I had been confined. That sermon I give 
herewith in its complete form as then preached. Its 
spirit and its letter seem appropriate for the closing 
of this little collection of army-chaplain teachings and 
preachings. 



PEACE AT LAST 

*' Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is 
stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee (Isa. 26 : 3). 

Peace ! What a precious word. How joyous and 
full of comfort to all. And to the soldier how much 
it means. If any appreciate its full force and blessed- 
ness, you do. From love of peace, you left your 
homes and came to the war. To **seek peace, and 
pursue it" (Psa. 34: 14), you turned away from 
mother and sister, from wife and child, gave up all 
that you had before deemed essential to enjoyment, 
and entered upon a life of severest trial and greatest 
exposure and peril. You have suffered and sacrificed 
for peace, longed for peace, prayed for peace, fought 
for peace. 

The hope of peace has kept you up in all these 
weary, waiting weeks of war ; its deferring has made 
your hearts sick, and has saddened and depressed you 
in many a troubled hour. While on the lonely vedette 
post, at the dead of night in the pine forest, with no 
sound to be heard but the chirp of the cricket or the 
call of the whip-poor-will, as you peered out into the 
darkness in the direction of the foe, and watched vigi- 
lantly while you longed for the next relief, — you have 

329 



330 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

thought of peace, and wondered when and how it 
would come, and whether you would live to see and 
enjoy it. You have dreamed of peace while you lay 
in camp, or as you napped it by the wayside or in the 
battle-line, waiting the order to advance. On guard, 
during dragging hours in hospital ; on the sea-washed 
deck, or in the close, dark, dingy hold of the army 
transport ; bivouacking, marching, throwing up earth- 
works, resting under cover, broiling in the trenches, or 
sitting in the chapel tent, — you have had peace before 
your eyes as a pleasant vision which you hardly dared 
hope to see. 

You have written home of peace. You have talked 
of peace with your comrades by the cook-tent or the 
field camp-fire. The possibility of peace has nerved 
your arms in the hour of fiercest conflict, and that 
you might help to secure peace you have stood un- 
flinchingly while comrades fell from your side in the 
shock of battle, have pressed forward with the advance 
in the deadly charge, or grappled with the enemy in 
the fearful hand-to-hand struggle on the parapet or 
within the surmounted fortress. 

And when there was a lull in the storm of war, or 
one victory or another to our national arms had given 
fresh ground for glad expectation and assured hope, 
you have asked of some intelligent comrade, or trusted 
commander, or of your chaplain, how long it would 
probably be before peace might be attained ; and you 
have wished that he could give you some better an- 
swer than that he waited and wondered and longed 



Rejoicing in Peace 331 

and prayed with the same restless desire and in the 
same ignorance and bHndness as yourselves. 

What cared you for victory save as an earnest of 
peace ? What was Roanoke ; what was New Berne ; 
what was Kinston ; what were James Island and Fort 
Wagner ; what were Deep Bottom and New Market 
Heights ; what was Petersburg, to yoii ; — ^what were 
Antietam, and Fort Donelson, and New Orleans, and 
Gettysburg, and Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, and 
Atlanta, and Savannah, and Charleston, and Richmond, 
to the nation, in comparison with Appomattox Court- 
House ? The others brought glory ; that brought 
peace. Were your hearts ever before so elated ? Did 
they ever so bound with gladness as then ? Did you 
ever give God thanks with reverent gratitude so 
heartily as when the announcement that Lee had sur- 
rendered brought you assurance that the end of the 
war was reached, and that at last peace had come? 
Peace ! Peace ! God be praised for peace ! 

Peace has been ever deemed a synonym of the 
richest blessing, and its possession the most favored 
lot of man. ** The Lord lift up his countenance upon 
thee, and give thee peace " (Num. 6 : 26), was the con- 
cluding benediction of Aaron and his sons upon the 
house of Israel, according to the divinely ordained 
liturgy. David declared that the end of the perfect 
man and the upright is peace (Psa. 37: 37). When 
the Angel of the Lord came to the shepherds on the 
plain of Bethlehem, bringing the good tidings of 
great joy to all people, while the glory of the 



2,2,2 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Lord shone round about, the glad ciy of the multi- 
tude of the heavenly host which rang through the 
universe in annunciation of the advent of the Re- 
deemer of the world was, " Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men " 
(Luke 2 : 9-14). And when our Saviour was returning 
to his celestial home, his gracious words to his be- 
loved disciples were, in tenderness and love, *' Peace 
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you " (John 
14 : 27). 

Isaiah, sweet poet and glad prophet of God's 
chosen people, describing sadly the course of the 
church in the following years, told of dark days when 
God's people were to be tried and sore distressed, 
and calamity should be over all the land, and utter de- 
struction would seem to await those who before had 
been favored in all the earth. But he gave hope of 
national redemption and of a new season of rarest 
prosperity, when God should make unto all people a 
feast of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees 
well refined, when he would destroy the face of the 
covering so long cast over the people, and the veil 
spread over the nations, when he should wipe away 
tears from off all faces, and take away the rebuke of 
his people from off all the earth. ** In that day shall 
this song," Isaiah says, ** be sung in the land of Judah ; 
We have a strong city ; salvation will God appoint 
for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the 
righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter 
in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 



Rejoicing in Peace 333 

mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee" 
(Isa. 26 : 1-3). 

The joy of the saints is pictured as peace — " per- 
fect peace." And I have often thought that in all 
the precious pages of the Old Testament writings no 
single passage is more beautiful, or contains a richer 
assurance of God's love and power, than the text I 
have named : **Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, 
whose mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in 
thee." 

The peace of the trusting child of God is continu- 
ous and undisturbed. It is not like an armistice pre- 
ceded and to be followed by bitter conflict. It is not 
like the fatal calm just before the battle opens, while 
the skirmishers are cautiously feeling for the enemy. 
It is not like the lull for an hour at Petersburg, or a 
day at Bermuda Hundred, with the nervous conscious- 
ness ever present that each second of quiet may be 
the last ; nor yet like the weeks of inaction at New 
Berne, St. Helena, Seabrook Island, or St. Augustine, 
with the war still dragging on and a call to a new- 
front likely to come at any time. There is no real 
rest — no thorough refreshing of body and mind — to 
the soldier, wherever he may find himself, so long as 
a state of warfare continues in his country. 

It is only when permanent peace to the entire coun- 
try is secured, with no danger of a resumption of 
hostilities, that he can be kept in perfect or unmarred 
peace. 

As the soldier's rest can be after the war for which 



334 Shoes and Ratiojts for a Long March 

he enlisted has closed, so is the faithful saint's rest 
always. He knows that his fighting is at an end. 
There may be war for others, but not for him. He 
will look up no spiritual Mexicos in which to exercise 
his martial spirit, now that the dearest interests for 
which he battled are secure. Even amid wars and 
rumors of wars in other lands on every side, he is 
kept in perfect peace ; nothing alarms, nothing dis- 
turbs him. By day and by night, in joy and in sor- 
row, in sickness and health, when tried and tempted, 
when betrayed by trusted friends, when disappointed 
in fondest hopes, when bereaved, when forsaken, when 
God's ways are most inscrutable, when all about him 
seems darkest, he whose mind is stayed on the loving 
Omnipotent One is kept in perfect peace. 

He whose mind is stayed on God ! Not all in this 
weaiy world have peace. *' There is no peace, saith 
my God, to the wicked" (Isa. 57 : 21). The law in 
the members is warring against the law of the mind 
continually of him who does not serve and trust 
Jehovah (Rom. 7 : 23). The man who lacks confi- 
dence in Jesus as his Saviour and Friend, has no de- 
lightful repose of mind and conscience. Any of you 
who do not count yourselves devoted children of God 
are at the best restless. 

If you are scoffers, or are deliberate violators of 
his law, — if you are profane or intemperate or dis- 
honest, — if you are ill-tempered, or unfaithful in any 
way to the demands of duty, — you are, with other 



Rejoicing in Peace 335 

wicked ones, "like the troubled sea, when it cannot 
rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isa. 57 : 20). 
If you are passably correct in deportment, or even 
reverent toward God and faithful to your neighbor, 
yet have not your mind stayed on God (Phil. 4 : 7), 
you lack that peace "which passeth all understand- 
ing" which comes from the knowledge that your 
Redeemer liveth, Jehovah, your Redeemer's Father 
and your Father, reigneth supremely, and that all 
things work together for good to you who love him. 

If your inner thoughts in your calmer moments, in 
seasons of retirement, while by yourselves, on guard, 
or in your tents, or on your beds, could testify, this 
truth would stand out before all the world as it is de- 
clared in revelation : that they — and they alone — are 
kept in perfect peace whose minds are stayed on 
God, who have fought the good fight of faith and 
come off conquerors through him who loved us and 
gave himself for us, and now have rest from war. 

" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind 
is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in thee " (Isa. 
26 : 3). "Because he trusteth in thee." There is no 
repose but in confidence. A man standing on the 
edge of a precipice must be sure of his footing or he 
can not be at ease, A man on the skirmish-line must 
be sure of his rifle. A regiment in battle, however 
gallant and efficient, wants to know that its flanks are 
protected, and that the regiment at right or left won't 
break and run at the first fire. 

He who trusteth in God has confidence. He stands 



2,2^^ Shoes and Rations for a Lo7ig March 

on the Rock Christ Jesus, He shall not be cast 
down. He is clad in the whole armor of God ; no 
weapon that is formed against him shall prosper. 
**The angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
them that fear him, and delivereth them" (Psa. 34 : 7). 
They are protected in front, flank, and rear. 

It is easy to have confidence when there is no ap- 
parent cause for alarm. The very child who would 
tremble and fear in a thunder-storm is cheerful and 
undisturbed on a bright summer morning. The fam- 
ily with its circle unbroken and all its surroundings 
those of affluence, of refinement, of health, and of 
beauty, can have confidence that all is and is to be 
well with them, even though they would be anxious 
or even terror-stricken if malignant disease were to 
invade their neighborhood, or if incendiaries and assas- 
sins were known to be at work in their vicinity. Sol- 
diers who would be demoralized by hearing an enemy 
in their rear, or by an unexpected sweep of grape and 
canister from a masked battery just in front, would 
go on boldly while the enemy was falling back and the 
shouts of victorious comrades came up encouragingly 
from right and left far up and down the battle-line. 

If the child trusted implicitly his strong and loving 
father, and had learned to rely unhesitatingly on his 
word and his supporting presence, he might stand 
unmoved while the lightnings flashed and the thunders 
pealed from the dark storm-clouds, and might enjoy 
the magnificence and grandeur of the scene as pointed 
out to him by the one on whom his young mind was 



Rejoicing in Peace 337 

stayed. If the family felt themselves already guarded 
against the dreaded contagion, and had no doubt of 
the bolts or bars of their dwelling, or the faithfulness 
of their long-tried watchman, they might still find en- 
joyment in the delights of their home circle, because 
they trusted in what had never failed them. 

If the soldiers knew their commander and that he 
had never been defeated, and they had just received 
word from him that all was right, or if they were so 
confident of their own strength that they could rush to 
the capture of the battery before its second discharge, 
they would be still steady, still faithful, as though all 
about them was indicative of present triumph. 

He who trusteth in God, he whose mind is really 
stayed on God, is just as cheerful, just as calm, or is 
as fully resigned and hopeful when the sky of his life 
is overcast, and the atmosphere breeds disease or 
bodes death to those less favored, and when others 
seem to be suffering defeat, as in the brightest hour 
of health and victory. It is just when there is most 
need of special strength that God gives it to his trust- 
ful children. It is just when there is room for doubt 
that assured confidence in a never-failing support 
comes to the aid of him who enjoys it. 

"As thou wilt ! still I can believe ; 

Never did the word of promise fail. 
Faith can hold it fast, and feel it sure, 

Though temptations cloud, and fears assail. 
Why art thou disquieted, O my soul ? 
When thy Father knows, and rules the whole. 



33^ Shoes and Rations for a Long March 



"As thou wilt, O Lord ! I ask no more. 

With the promise, Faith pursues her way ; 
Patience can endure through sorrow's night, 

Hope can look beyond to Heaven's own day. 
Love can wait, and trust, and labor still ; 
Life and death shall be, according to Thy will ! " ^ 

All God's signs of power and sovereignty but give 
new ground of confidence to those whose rr.inds are 
stayed on God. Does the young lion shrink from the 
strong frame, the stout limb, and the sharp claws of 
the king of beasts ? Or do these but give greater 
confidence to the dependent creature in whose behalf 
they are exercised for the obtaining of daily food ? 
Yet " The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger : but 
they that seek the Lord shall not want any good 
thing" (Psa. 34: 10). Does the loyal citizen of the 
Republic have anxiety and fear because of the vast 
authority centered in the Chief Magistrate of the 
nation? Or does he, from a knowledge of this, have 
restful satisfaction in the thought that his personal 
and social interests as a citizen are sure of being pro- 
tected against all foreign and domestic foes ? Yet it 
is not safe to put implicit trust in man, nor in the son 
of man in whom is no sure help (Psa. 146: 3) ; for 
the Lord alone doeth wondrously (Psa. 72: 18), and 
there is none good but One, that is God (Luke 18 : 19). 

Do you enjoy perfect peace ? The end of the war 
in which you have fought so bravely and endured so 
nobly is at hand. Is there no warfare in your mem- 

1 Neumeister, " Hymns from Land of Luther," page 145. 



Rejoicing iii Peace 339 

bers, the issue of which gives you doubt ? Are you 
sure of victory over self, of victory over sin, of vic- 
tory over death ? God keeps those in perfect peace 
whose minds are stayed on him. If you are still dis- 
trustful — if you are not yet a rejoicing conqueror — it 
is because of your lacking restful faith in Jesus, not 
having your mind stayed on him, as your only, your 
all-sufficient Redeemer. 

Is your mind stayed on Jesus ? If so, you need 
never know fear, for perfect love brings perfect peace 
and casteth out fear. You will not be without trials, 
but you may have peace of mind in all your trials, 
and assured confidence for the happy end. "■ Many 
are the afflictions of the righteous : but the Lord de- 
livereth him out of them all" (Psa. 34: 19). ''The 
Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants : and none 
of them that trust in him shall be desolate" (Psa. 
34:22). 

If your mind is not stayed on Jesus, what is its 
stay ? What is your trust this hour ? What gives 
you comfort in sorrow? What gives you unalloyed 
joy in peace ? What is your source of strength for 
daily duty? What is your hope for the eternal 
future ? Who stands for you now in the Father's 
presence ? Who will welcome you at the final 
judgment? There is but one Redeemer, but one 
sure comfort for any sorrowing, sinning child of man. 
Every other stay will fail as the broken reed, — piercing, 
not upholding, him who leans on it for support. Peace 
in the soul is found only under the banner of the 



340 Shoes and Rations for a Long March 

Prince of Peace. Whatever other flag waves above 
or is followed by you, will avail you nothing when 
you have fought your last fight on earth, however 
dear it may be to you while you are still a soldier of 
the government it represents. 

Blessed be God for the peace which opens before 
us as a nation, with the rest it brings to us as soldiers 
in the Union army ! Blessed be God for the perfect 
peace in which those are kept whose minds are stayed 
on him, and who trust him wholly ! God grant that 
as you enter upon the joys of peace to our favored 
land, you may not shut out yourselves from the peace 
which God speaks to his people and to his saints, 
the peace which passeth all understanding (Psa. 85 : 8), 
and which is unbroken and eternal. 

And now may **the God of peace, that brought 
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shep- 
herd of the sheep, through the blood [the life] of the 
everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good 
work to do his will, working in you that which is 
well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ ; to 
whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen" (Heb. 
13 : 20, 21). 



INDEXES 



TOPICAL INDEX 



Aaron, reference to, 331. 
Abed-nego, reference to, 228, 
Abel, reference to, 244. 
Abraham, references to, 32, 220, 244. 
Absalom, reference to, 22. 
Acorn: its prolificness, loi. 
Acrocorinthus, reference to, 242. 
Adam, cowardice of, 177. 
Agricultural College at Amherst, refer- 
ence to, 216. 
Alexander, Mrs., quotation from, 152. 
Alexander, Archibald, reference to, 248. 
Alexander the Great, reference to, 32. 
America, foot-gear of women of, 10. 
Amherst, Massachusetts, reference to, 

147. 
Amherst College, references to, 52, 

147 f., 216. 
Andersonville prison, references to, 

86 f., 2IO. 
Antietam, reference to, 331. 
Aphrodite, temple of, reference to, 242. 
Apollos, reference to, 244. 
Appomattox Court House, references 

to, 117, 327. 331. 
Arabs of Sinai, foot-gear of, 11. 
Archer, Mrs., incident in life of, 296 f. 
Arnald, Prince, reference to, 33. 
Arnold of Rugby, quotation from, 169. 
Assyria : reference to kings of, 32 ; 

moral teachings of sages of, 190. 
AstOr, William B., reference to, 157. 
Athanasius, quotation from, 178. 
Athena;, reference to, 242. 
Athens : temple of,40 ; reference to, 241. 
Atlanta, Georgia, reference to, 331. 
Atlas, child's thought about fabled, 

276 f. 
Attica, reference to, 242. 
Augustine, Saint : reference to, 165 ; 

quotation from, 252. 

Baal, references to, 287, 316. 
Babylon: reference to kings of, 32; 

captivity of children of Judah in, 

228. 



Barak, references to, 244, 294. 

Baxter, Richard, quotation from, 304. 

Bean : its prolificness, loi. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, quotations from, 
158, 176. 

Beethoven, quotation from, 167. 

Belgium, foot-gear of women of, 10. 

Belle Island, references to, 86, 210, ^28. 

Benhadad, reference to, 32. 

Bermuda Hundred, reference to, 333. 

" Billings, Josh," quotation from, 102. 

Binney, Horace, reference to, 248. 

Biton and Cleobis, story of, 309. 

Blind girl, incident of, 226. 

Bonar, Horatius, quotations from, 42, 
114, 324. 

Boodhism : teaching of, 81 ; reference 
to, 200. 

Boston Latin School, reference to, 52. 

Brahmanism, teaching of, 81. 

Bright, John, "Punch's" praise for, 
180. 

British Academy of Medicine, refer- 
ence to, 173. 

Broadway, incident of lost boy in, 89 f. 

Brougham, Lord : quotation from, 154 ; 
reference to, 169 ; his work in free- 
ing England's slaves, 181. 

Brown, John, reference to, 175. 

Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, 
quotation from, 84 f. 

Buflfon, quotation from, 167. 

Bulwer's " Schiller," quotations from, 
166, 169. 

" Burial of Moses," quotation from, 
152. 

Burke, Edmund, quotations from, 160, 
171. 

Burns, quotation from, 136. 

Burritt, Elihu, quotation from, 166 f. 

Bushnell, Dr. Horace : reference to, 
150; quotation from, 271. 

Bushnell, Louisa, quotation from, 78. 

Buxton, Sir Fowell : quotation from, 
170 ; his work in freeing England's 
slaves, 181. 

343 



344 



Topical Index 



Campbell, quotation from, 128. 
Canaan, reference to, 30. 
Capernaum, references to, 75-78, 85. 
■ Card-playing, reference to, 229. 
Carlyle, reference to, 176. 
Castle Thunder, reference to, 328. 
Cecil, Richard, quotation from, 104. 
" Character," meaning of word, 138, 
Charles V., Titian's letter to. 168 
Charleston : incidents of prison life in, 
43, 84, 86 f., 207-211 ; references to, 

52. 331 
Chatrian. See Ercktnann-Chatrian. 
Chattanooga, reference to, 331. 
Chicago, reference to, 64. 
China, moral teachings of sages of, 190. 
Chinese: their foot-gear, 9 f.; refer- 
ence to, 222; ancestor- worship 

among, 250. 
" Chronology," Newton's, reference to, 

168. 
Chronometer, conscience compared to, 

231. 
Clark, President, of Massachusetts 

Agricultural College, quotation 

from, 148. 
Clarke, Adam, quotation from, 171 f. 
Clarkson's work in freeing England's 

slaves, 181. 
Cleobis, reference to, 309. 
Columbia jail : references to, 52. 86, 

210. 281 ; incident of life in, 73. 
Color-blindness : moral,2i 5-236 ; among 

railroad men. 217 f. 
Compass : its testing by shipbuilders, 

227 ; conscience compared to, 227 f. 
Confucianism, teaching of, 82. 
Conscience : not a safe guide, 215-236; 

compared to chronometer. 231 ; 

compared to compass, 257 f. 
Corinth, references to, 241 f. 
Corn : its prolificness, 100 f. 
" Cosmos," Humboldt's, reference to, 

168 f. 
Cowper, W., quotations from, 224, 288. 
Cromwell, reference to, 175. 
Cuzco, temple at, 40. 

Dana, Dr. S. W., reference to, 282. 

Dancing, reference to, 229. 

Dandolo, reference to, 176. 

Daniel, reference to, 228. 

David, references to, 108, 151-153, 174 f., 
181, 244, 246, 294, 331. 

Davis, Jefferson, reference to, 327. 

Declaration of Independence, refer- 
ence to, 247. 

Deep Bottom, reference to, 331. 

Demosthenes, reference to, 169. 

Dickens, Charles, quotation from, 167. 

Disraeli, quotation from, 170. 

Dobell, Sydney, quotation from, 178. 



Drummond, Professor Henry, refer- 
ences to, 68, 193. 

Dublin University, reference to, 157. 

Dyaks of Borneo, rating of character 
among, 226. 

Easthampton, Massachusetts, refer- 
ences to, 144, 147. 
Ebal, reference to, 30. 
Egypt : references to kings of. 32 ; 

reference to, 104, 315; Napoleon 

in, 247. 
Egyptians, moral teachings of, 190. 
Eleventh Maine Regiment, reference 

to, 281. 
Elijah : his bravery before prophets of 

Baal, 175; references to, 286 f., 

316-318. 
Elizabeth, Queen, reference to, 161. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quotations 

from, 137, 179. 
England : foot-gear of women of, 10 ; 

work of Sharp, Brougham, Wilber- 

force, and Clarkson in freeing slaves 

of, 181. 
Enoch, reference to, 244. 
Ephraim, hills of, reference to, 30. 
Erckmann-Chatrian, quotation from, 

164. 
Esau, reference to, 108. 
Eton, reference to, 155. 
" Eugene Aram," quotation from, 130. 
Euphrates, reference to, 30. 

Faber, F. W., quotation from, 314. 

Ferguson, James, reference to, 99. 

Fisk & Co., " Jim," reference to, 158. 

Flavel, reference to, 304. 

Foot-gear : in Smithsonian Institution, 
9; among Chinese women, 9 f.; 
among peasant women of Holland 
and Belgium, 10 ; among women 
of England and America, 10; 
among Arabs of Sinai, 11 ; among 
Israelites, 11. 

Fort Donelson, reference to, 331. 

Fort Wagner, references to, 43, 331. 

Foss, President, of Wesleyan Univer- 
sity, quotation from, 274 f. 

Fox. Charles James, quotation from, 
171. 

Franks, reference to, 33. 

Fuller, Thomas, quotation from, 109. 

Galilee, references to, 31, 75, 283. 
Galileo, reference to, 98 f. 
Garfield, reference to. 99. 
Gerizim, reference to, 30. 
Gettysburg, references to, 207, 331. 
Giardini, reference to, 167. 
Gibbon's " Memoir," reference to, 168. 
Gideon, references to, 244, 294, 



Topical Index 



;45 



Glasgow, incident related by John B. 
Gough in, 296 f. 

Goethe, quotation from, 180. 

Gough, John B., incident related by, 
296 f. 

Grant, General, reference to, 313. 

(jray, Elinor, quotation from, 96. 

Greece : moral teachings of philoso- 
phers of, 190; wisdom of classic 
philosophies of, 200. 

Greeks, rights of new-born child among, 
191 f. 

Grenoble, Napoleon's bravery at, 174 f. 

Guest, William, quotation from, 160. 

Gurney, John Joseph, quotation from, 
153- 

Hamilton, A. E., quotation from, 311. 
Hastings, Warren, references to, 160, 

171. 
Havergal, Frances Ridley, quotation 

from, 95. 
Hawes, Dr. Joel, quotation from, 159. 
Hazael, reference to, 32. 
Heber, Bishop, quotation from, 87. 
Helicon, reference to, 242. 
'• Hell Fire," incident in life of, 296 f. 
Henshaw, Principal Marshall, refer- 
ence to, 145. 
Herbert, George, quotation from, 139. 
Hermon, reference to, 30. 
Herodotus, incident from, 309. 
Hill, President, of Harvard, quotation 

from, 157. 
Holland, foot-gear of women of, 10. 
Hood, quotation from, 130. 
Hormozan, reference to, 33. 
House of Commons, reference to. 170. 
'* Human Body, and its Connection 

with Man, The," reference to, 159. 
Humboldt's " Cosmos," reference to, 

168 f 
" Hymns from the Land of Luther," 

reference to, 337 f. 
" Hypocrisy," meaning of the word, 

122 f. 

Incident : of army experiences in 
North Carolina, 7; of prison life in 
Charleston, 43, 84, 86 f., 207-211; 
of New Hampshire boy, 44-47 : of 
godless army captain, 63 ; of prison 
life in Columbia, 73 ; of soldier in 
Richmond, 83 f.; of New England 
prayer-meeting, 88 ; of lof-t boy in 
New York, 89 f.; of Virginia mur- 
derer, 111-113; of bravery of Na- 
poleon, 174 f. ; of blind girl, 226; 
of Napoleon at pyramids, 247 ; in 
life of Mrs., Archer. 296 f.; in ascent 
of Mount Sinai, 307; from Herodo- 
tus, 309; of prison-life in South 



Carolina, 312 f.; of dying girl in 

Philadelphia, 317 f.; at battle ol the 

Nile, 323. 
India, moral teachings of sages of, 190 
Indian corn, prolificness of, loo \. 
Indians, reference to, 222. 
Indians, American, rating of character 

among, 226 
Indianapolis, National Sunday-school 

Convention at, 66. 
International Bible Lessons, 66. 
" Iron Duke," references to, 155, 310. 
Irving, Washington, reference to, 169. 
Isaac, reference to, 244. 
Isis, reference to, 104. 
Isles of Shoals, reference to, 52. 
Isthmian games, references to, 242-244. 

Jackson, Thomas : reference to, 167 ; 

quotation from, 168. 
Jacob, references to, 31, 220, 244. 
Jacob's Well, references to, 28, 30, 31, 

33 f-, 37. 39- 
James Island, reference to, 331. 
Jefferson, Thomas, reference to, 248. 
Jenner, reference to, 168. 
Jephthah, references to, 244, 294. 
Jerusalem, references to, 28, 30, 75, 

259 f. 
Jesus at Jacob's Well, references to, 

28, 32. 
Jews, reference to, 316. 
Jezreel, reference to, 30. 
Job, references to, 165, 181, 315, 317 f. 
John, reference to, 283. 
John the Baptist, reference to, 202. 
Jonah, reference to, 22. 
Joseph, reference to, 244. 
Joshua, reference to, 244 
Jordan, references to, 30 f., 283, 
Judas, reference to, 284. 
Judea, references to, 31, 75. 
Juno, reference to, 309. 

Kadesh. reference to, 286, 
Kedor-la'omer, reference to, 32. 
'• King Duncan," reference to, 132. 
Kinston, reference to, 331. 
Klondike, reference to, 53. 

La Granja, reference to, 40. 
•' Lady Macbeth," reference to, 132. 
Laodicea, reference to. 246. 
Larcom, Lucy, quotation from, 105. 
" Last Supper," Titian's, reference to, 

168. 
Lathbury, M. A., quotation from, 311. 
Lazarus, references to, 260, 273. 
Lebanon, references to, 33, 104. 
Lee, General, references to, 327 f. , 331. 
Lepanto, Gulf of. reference to, 241. 
Libby Prison, references to, 93, 210, 328. 



;46 



Topical Index 



London, Carlyle's reference to people 

of, 176 
Longfellow, quotation from, 165. 
Lot, reference to, 32. 
Lotteries as means of building churches, 

221 f 
Lowell, James Russell, quotations 

from, 192 f., 305 f 
Luther, reference to, 175. 
Lying : reference to, 215 ; to help on 

good causC: 222 ; as a duty among 

Orientals, 226 

Magill, Robert, quotation from, 66. 

Mann, Horace, reference to, 157 

Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, refer- 
ence to, 181. 

Martha of Bethany, references to, 257- 
278. 

Mary, reference to, 257-278. 

Massachusetts Agricultural College, 
reference to, 147 f. 

Melzi, reference to, 176. 

•' Memoirs of Sheridan," reference to, 
171. 

Memphis, temple at, 40. 

Meshach, reference to, 228. 

Mexico, temple at, 40. 

Michel Angelo, reference to, 167. 

Mill. J. Stuart, reference to, 176. 

Milton, quotation from, 266. 

Minerva Promachus. reference to, 242 

Montesquieu, quotation from, 168. 

Moody, Dwight L., references to, 216, 

235- 

Moore, Tom : reference to, 169 ; quota- 
tion from, 171. 

Morea, reference to, 241. 

Morris Island, reference to, 43, 52. 

Moses, references to, 10 f., 178, 244, 
286 f, 315, 317 f. 

Mukhna, Plain of, reference to, 31. 

Nabloos, reference to, 28. 

Napoleon : references to, 10, 99, 155, 

164. 169 f., i74-i76,'247, 310. 
National Sunday-school Convention, 

reference to, 66. 
Nazareth, reference to, 75. 
Nebuchadnezzar, reference to, 32. 
Necho, reference to, 32. 
Nelson, Admiral, at battle of the Nile, 

323- 

Neptune, temple of, reference to, 242. 

Nero, reference to, 103. 

Neumeister, quotation from, 337 f. 

New Berne. North Carolina, reference 
to, 281 f., 331, 333. 

New England : prayer-meeting, inci- 
dent of, 88; reference to, 246 f.; 
preacher's thought on God's pro- 
tection, 274 f. 



New Englander, quotation from, 162. 

New Hampshire boy, incident of, 44-47. 

New ]VIarket Heights, reference to, 331. 

New Orleans, reference to. 331. 

New York : stock gamblers of, 64 ; in- 
cident of lost boy in, 89 f. ; war riots 
in, 207 ; incident of blind girl in, 
226. 

Newton, Sir Isaac: quotation from, 
166 ; reference to, 172. 

Newton, John, quotations from, 18, 285. 

Newton's ''Chronology," reference to, 
168. 

Niagara Falls, reference to, 169. 

Nile, references to, 30, 284, 323. 

Nineveh, temple of, 40. 

Noah, references to, 102, 244. 

Norseland navigators, reference to, 
246 f. 

North Carolina : army experiences in, 
7 ; reference to, 207. 

North Pole, reference to, 53. 

Northampton, reference to, 147. 

Northfield, reference to, 216. 

Northfield Students' Conference, refer- 
ences to, 218, 239, 254. 

Nuffar, temple of, 40. 

Olives, Mount of, reference to, 259. 

Omar, reference to, 33. 

Orientals, lying to enemy a duty among, 

226. 
Owen, Dr., quotation from, 165. 

Pallas, reference to, 242. 

Parliament, reference to, 171. 

Parnassus, reference to, 244. 

Parthenon, reference to, 242. 

Parton, James, quotation from, 165. 

Paul, references to, 57, 153 f., 178, 187 f., 
220, 244, 251 f., 270, 278, 294, 316- 
318. 

Payson Church, Easthampton, Massa- 
chusetts, reference to, 216. 

Peel, Sir Robert, reference to, 129. 

Peloponnesus, reference to, 241 f. 

Penn, William, quotation from, 104 f. 

Persepolis, temple at, 40. 

Peter, references to, 287 f. 

Peter the Hermit, reference to, 175. 

Petersburg, reference to, 331, 333. 

Phidias, reference to, 242. 

Philadelphia: references to, 27, 64; 
Bi-Centennial of, reference to, 104; 
deathbed incident in, 317 f. 

Philip V of Spain, reference to, 40. 

Philippi, reference to jailer of, 270. 

Philippines, reference to, 53. 

Philistines, David's bravery before the, 

175- 
'* Photo-sculpture," reference to, 135 
Pitt, William, quotation from, 171. 



Topical Index 



347 



"Plain of the Cornfields," reference to. 

Poppy : its prolificness, loo. 
Poseidon, temple of, 242. 
Prayer, child's thought on, 273. 
Prentiss, Mrs. E. P., quotation from, 

86. 
Proctor, A. A., quotations from, 312, 

321. 
Ptolemies, reference to, 32. 
" Punch," quotation from, 180. 
Puritans, reference to, 247. 

QuiNCY, Josiah : reference to, 249 ; 
quotation from, 250. 

Quincy, President, of Harvard, refer- 
ence to, 249. 

Quincy, Edmund, reference to, 249. 

Quincy, Josiah Phillips, reference to, 
249. 

Quincy, General Samuel Miller, refer- 
ence to, 249. 

Quotations from : 

Alexander, Mrs., 152. 

Arnold of Rugby, 169. 

Athanasius, 178. 

Augustine, St., 252. 

Baxter, Richard, 304. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 158, 176. 

Beethoven, 167. 

" Billings, Josh," 102. 

Bonar, Horatius, 42, 114, 324. 

Brougham, Lord, 154. 

Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett, 
84 f. 

Buffon, 167. 

Bulwer's " Schiller," 166, 169. 

" Burial of Moses," 152. 

Burke, Edmund, 160, 171. 

Burns, 136. 

Burritt, Elihu, 166 f. 

Bushnell, Dr. Horace, 271. 

Bushnell, Louisa, 78. 

Buxton, Sir Powell, 170. 

Campbell, 128. 

Cecil, Richard, 104. 

Chatrian. See Ercktnann- Cha- 
ir i an. 

Clark, President, of Massachusetts 
Agricultural College, 148. 

Clarke, Adam, 171 f. 

Cowper, W., 224, 288. 

Dickens, Charles, 167. 

Disraeli, 170. 

Dobell, Sydney, 178. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 137, 179. 

" Eugene Aram," 130. 

Faber, F. W., 314. 

Foss, President, of Wesleyan Uni- 
versity, 274 f. 

Fox, Charles James, 171. 



Fuller, Thomas, 109. 

Goethe, 180. 

Gray, Elinor, 96. 

Guest, William, 160. 

Gurney, John Joseph, 153. 

Hamilton, A. E., 311. 

Havergal, Frances Ridley, 95. 

Hawes, Dr. Joel, 159. 

Heber, Bishop, 87. 

Herbert, George, 139. 

Hill, President, of Harvard, 157. 

Hood, 130. 

Jackson, Thomas, 168. 

Larcom, Lucy, 105. 

Lathbury, M. A., 311. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 

165. 
Lowell, James Russell, 192 f., 305 f. 
Magill, Robert, 66. 
Milton, 266. 
Alontesquieu, 168. 
Moore, Tom, 171. 
New Englander, 162. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 166. 
Newton, John, 18, 285. 
Owen, Dr., 165. 
Parton, James, 165. 
Penn, William, 104 f. 
Pitt, William, 171. 
Prentiss, Mrs. E. P., 86. 
Proctor, A. A., 312, 321. 
" Punch," 180. 

" Record of Noble Deeds," 161. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 167. 
Rossetti, Christine G., 286, 320. 
"Schiller," Bulwer's, 166, 169. 
Seelye, Professor L. Clark, 147 f. 
Shakespeare, 308. 
Smiles, Samuel, 160. 
Smith, Sydney, 167. 
"Son of Heaven," Emperor, 250. 
Stone, Mary K. A., 252. 
Tennyson, 132. 
Titian, 168. 

Wadsworth, Rev. Dr. Charles, 155 f. 
Webster, Daniel, 169 f. 
Whipple, E. P., 159. 
Woolsey, Theodore, i6i. 
Young, Edward, 160. 

Rahab, reference to, 244. 

Railroad men, color-blindness among, 

217 f. 
Rameses, reference to, 32. 
Ray, the botanist, reference to, 100. 
" Record of Noble Deeds," quotation 

from, 161. 
Red Sea, reference to, 284, 315. 
"Reputation," meaning of word, 138. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, quotation from, 

167. 
Rezin of Syria, reference to, 32. 



348 



Topical Index 



Richmond : incident of soldier at, 83 f.; 
references to, 117, 120, 147,281, 327 f, 

331 ■ 

Roanoke, reference to, 331. 

Robinson, President E. G.. reference 
to, 216. 

Roman theaters, reference to, 303. 

Romans, new-born child among, 191 f. 

Rome: temple at, 40; reference to, 
103 ; moral teachings of philoso- 
phers of, 190 ; wisdom of classic 
philosophies of, 200. 

Rossetti, Christine G., quotations from, 
286, 320. 

Rum as "gift of God," 227. 

Saladeen, reference to, 33. 

Salem, Massachusetts, reference to, 8. 

Salisbury prison, reference to, 210. 

Samaria, references to, 31, 7^, 

Samaritans, references to, 28, 31 f., 34. 

Samson, references to, 244, 294. 

Samuel, references to, 11 f., 244, 294. 

Sarah, reference to, 244. 

Saronic Gulf, reference to, 242. 

Savannah, reference to, 331. 

St. Augustine, references to city of, 52, 

74. 93. 333- 
St. Helena, reference to, 333. 
"Schiller," Bulwer's, quotations from, 

166, 169. 
Scotch ship-builders, reference to, 227. 
Seabrook Island, references to, 51 f., 

333- 
Seelye, Dr. Samuel T., reference to, 

147. 
Seelye, Professor L. Clark, quotation 

from, 147 f. 
Sennacherib, reference to, 32. 
" Service-chevron," reference to, 321 f. 
Sety, reference to, 32. 
Shadrach, reference to, 228. 
Shakespeare, quotation from, 308. 
Shalmanezer, reference to, 32. 
Sharp. Granville, manly individualism 

of, 180 f. 
Shechem, Valley of, reference to, 30, 

31 f. 

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, reference 
to, 170 f. 

Shishak, reference to, 32. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, reference to, 35, 161. 

Silas, reference to, 270. 

Simon, reference to, 77. 

Sinai, Mount : incident in climbing, 
307; reference to, 315. 

" Sir Lancelot of the Lake," reference 
to, 132. 

Slavery : work for abolition of, in Eng- 
land and America, 180 f.; as divine 
institution. 227. 

Smiles, Samuel, quotation from, 160. 



Smith, Sydney, quotation from, 167. 
Smith College for Women, reference to, 

Smithsonian Institution, exhibit of foot- 
gear in, 9. 
Soldier, cowardice of brave. 289. 
Solomon, references to, 151, 155 f., 174, 

246. 
"Son of Heaven," Emperor, quotation 

from, 250. 
South Carolina, war incident in, 312 f. 
Stewart, A. T., reference to. 157. 
Stiles, President, as barterer of slaves, 

221. 
Stone, Mary K. A., quotation from, 

252. 
Strong, Rev. Dr. Nathan, as a distiller 

221. 
Students' Conference at Northfield 

references to, 218, 235 f., 254, 
Sunflower ; its prolificness, 100. 
Sychar, reference to, 31. 
Susa, temple at, 40. 

Telemachus, St. : his bravery at tji 

Colosseum, 175 
Tennyson, quotation fromi, 132. 
Theater-going, reference to, 229. 
Thebes, temple of, 40. 
Thotmes. reference to, 32. 
Tiglath-pileser, reference to, 32. 
Timothy, reference to, 100. 
Tithe-giving, Bible teachings on, 232. 
Titian, quotation from, 168. 
Tobacco : its prolificness, 100 f.; refer 

ence to its use, 229. 
Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Regi- 

ment, reference to, 328. 

Uriah, reference to, 108. 

Venus, temple of, reference to, 242. 

Vicksburg, reference to, 331. 

Virginia murderer, incident of, 111-113. 

Wadsworth, Rev. Dr. Charles, quota- 
tion from, 155 f. 
Wagner, reference to fight at, 84. 
Walker, Hon. Amasa, quotation from, 

161. 
Walnut Street Presbyterian Church of 

Philadelphia, reference to, 282. 
" War Memories of an Army Chaplain," 

reference to. 3. 
Washington, George, reference to, 251. 
Washington, Mary, reference to, 251. 
Waterloo, battle of, references to, 155, 

310. 
Webster, Daniel : quotations from, 

169 f. ; reference to, 250. 
Webster, Captain Ezekiel, reference to, 

251. 



Topical /jtdex 



349 



Webster, Noah, reference to, 248. 
Westminster Abbey, reference to, 323. 
Wheat, germinating power of, 104. 
Whipple, £. P., quotation from, 159. 
White, Ambrose, reference to. 27. 
Wilberforce's work in freeing England's 

slaves, 181. 
"Wilkie, David, reference to, 99. 
Williams College, reference to, 148. 
Williamsburg, Long Island, reference 

to, 28. 
Williston Seminary, reference to, 144, 

216. 
Winckelried, Arnold de, reference to, 

174. 



Wine-drinking among modern travelers, 

228. 
Woolsey, Theodore, quotation from, 

161. 
World's Student Conference, references 

to, 216, 239. 
Worry, wickedness of, 259-278. 

Yale College : references to its boat 

crew, 58, 148, 178, 221. 
Young, Edward, quotation from, 162. 

ZoROASTRiANisM, teaching of, 81 f. 
Zutphen, reference to, 35. 



SCRIPTURAL INDEX 



GENESIS 

TEXT PAGE 

I : II, 24 77 

3 : 12 177 

9 : 20, 21 102 

14 32 

EXODUS 

2:2 154 

23 : 2 178 

33 : II 315 

LEVITICUS 

5 : 17 223 

NUMBERS 

6 : 26 331 

II : 14, 15 315 

12 : 3 286 

20 : 7-12 286 

DEUTERONOMY 

6:5 153 

8:4 II 

29 : 29 97 

33 : 1 II 

33 : 25 . . 9,11 (twice), 

. . . 14, 16 f., 21, 24 

34 : 7 154 

JOSHUA 

1:5 320 

1:8., 233 

1:9 21, 173 

I SAMUEL 

2:9 12 

4:9 166 

9:2 154 

16 : 7 97 

20 : 3 304 



2 SAMUEL 

TEXT PAGE 

6 : 14 153 

12 : 9-13 108 

23 : I 151 

I KINGS 

2:2 151-182 

3 : 10 156 

18 287 

19 287 

19 : 4 316 



29 



CHRONICLES 



153 



JOB 

6 : 8-10 315 

17 : 9 165 

19 : 25-27 181 

PSALMS 
2:8 82 

17 : 15 82 

19 : 8, II 231 

19 : 12, 14 126 

25 •■ 4 233 

34 : 7 336 

34 : 10 338 

34 : 14 329 

34 : 19, 22 339 

37 : 37 331 

42 : I, 2 39 

48 : 14 12 

55 : 22 276 

63 : I 39 

72 : 16 loi 

72 : 18 338 

84 : 2 22 

85 : 8 340 

116 : 15 308 

119 : 9 231 



TEXT PAGE 

119 : 96 56, 233 

119 '• 128-130 233 

139 : 10 173 

146 : 3 338 

PROVERBS 

159 

160 

60 

163 

231 

167 

108 

57 

108 

167 

60 

96 

233 

156 

39 

154 

156 

I 62, 160 

108 

159 

29 59. 154 

59 

173 

ECCLESIASTES 

26 200 

28 176 

10 153 

16 156 

: 20 136 

: 1 loi 



4 : 


7-13 


4 : 


23 


5 : 

6 : 


22 
10 


6: 


23 


10 
II 


4 
18 


II 


31 


12 


14 


13 
13 


4 
6 


14 


10 


14 
16 


12 
22 


20 


I 


20 
21 


29 
16 


22 


I 


22 


8 


23 


7 


23 


29 


23 
28 


30 
19 



ISAIAH 

20, 21 225 

20 234 

: I, 2 332 



351 



352 



Scriptural Index 



TEXT 








PAGE 


26 : 3 .... 277, 329-340 


29 : 8 . . . 


.... 41 


35 : 5, 6, 10 








. 205 


40 : 8 ... 








• 19 


40 : 29 . . . 








. 320 


41 : 10 . . . 








. 20 


43 : 2 • • • 








. 20 


46 : 4 ... 








. 320 


46 : 6 ... 








. sa 


55 : I • • • 








• 47 


57 : 20 . . . 


. 59» i95» 335 


57:21 •• • 


. 59» i9S» 334 


66 : 13 . . . 


.... 320 


JEREMIAH 


2 : 13 .40 


29 : 13 . . . 








. 86 



EZEKIEL 
21 : 27 128 

DANIEL 
1:4 228 



HOSEA 



4 : II 
8:7. 



39 
103 



MALACHI 
3:6 320 



4 : 

4 : 

5 : 

5 •• 

6 : 
6 : 

6 : 

7 : 
9 : 
9 : 
9 : 



MATTHEW 

I 281, 283-324 

2-11 281 

4 3" 

6 87 

13 291 

23 219 

31-33 276 

16, 17 . . . . 

5 

29 

36, 37 . . . . 
24, 25 . . , 

42 

28 



.... 97 
.... 274 
.... 173 
.... 192 

.... 288 

.... 35 
.... 276 

35 129, 160 

28 305 

30 108 

II 165 

.... 277 
.... 287 

... .195 
.... 269 

.... 153 
.... 139 
.... 287 

.... 277 



9, 10 
1-13 
2-5 



38, 39 
6 . . 

33 . . 
20 . . 



MARK 

TEXT PAGE 

I : 32-34 • 76 

I : 35 77 

I : 37 75 

4 : 20 106 

4 : 28 98 

9 : 2-13 287 

10 : 21 269 

14 : 3, 4, 6-9 . . . 267 
14 : 31,66-71 ..... 287 



LUKE 

2 : 9-14 332 

9 : 28-36 287 

10 : 38-42 259-278 

11 : 4 291 

II : 34 218, 219 

11 : 35 217-236 

12 : I, 2 .... 121-140 

12 : 2, 3 63 

12 : 48 223 

18 : 19 338 

21 : 19 267 



JOHN 

9 230 

24, 25 96 

18 270 

36 202 

i3> 14 30-47 

24 202 

30 ..... . 

39 

3i» 32 

12 



294 

230 

194 

230 

10 206 

I, 2 267 

21, 28 265 

25, 26 201 

3 271 

13 197 

24-27 18 

27 284 

1-3 306 

27 199. 332 

5 274 

2 220 

17 230 

4-8 177 

10 287 



ACTS 

4 : 12 200, 269 

6 : 15 205 

13 : 36 . 181 

16 : 31 270 

26 : 9 220 



ROMANS 

TEXT PAGE 

6 : 23 201, 268 

7:7 220 

7 : 23 163, 334 

8 : 16, 17 197 

8 : 22 201 

8 : 26 81 

8 : 35-37 319 

8 : 38, 39 303-324 

12 : 19 232 

13 : 14 162 

14 : 4 234 

14 : 5 178, 234 

14 : 21 233 

14 : 23 173 

15 : I 233 

1 CORINTHIANS 

3 : 17 59 

6 : 19, 20 154 

9:7 108 

9 : 25 57 

9 : 27 316 

10 : 12 284 

10 : 13 . . 21, 164, 292,319 

11 : 3 187-211 

II : 13 162 

IS : 26 305 

15 : 37 loi 

2 CORINTHIANS 

1 :3.4 3" 

4 : 8,9 41 

5 : 10 no, 139 

6 : 9, 10 41 

10 : 12 230 

11 : 26, 27 ..... . 316 

12 : 9 .... 20, 294, 319 
12 : 10 173, 294 

GALATIANS 

2 : 20 203 

4:7 197 

5 : 17 163 

5 : 22, 23 113 

6:7 95, 114. 223 

6:8 113 

EPHESIANS 
4 : 13. 15 182 

6 : 10 173 

6 : 13 266, 323 

6 : 14-16 323 

PHILIPPIANS 

I : 21 202, 317 

I : 23 308, 316 

4:7 3^5 

4 : II 278 

4 : 12 198, 278 

4 : 13 21, 278, 294 



Scriptural Index 



353 



I PETER 

TEXT PAGE 

I : 24, 25 19 

COLOSSIANS 

I : 17 271 

1 : 19 196 

1 : 24 252 

2:9 79 

2 : 10 83, 203 

3 : 23 153 

I TIMOTHY 
1:5 100 

2:5 177 

4:8 162 

6:6 61 



2 TIMOTHY 

TEXT PAGE 

I : 10 82 

2:1 173 

3 : 15 100 

HEBREWS 

1 : I, 2 190 

2 : 10 173 

2 : 18 290, 297 

4 : 13 96 

4 : 15, 16 290 

II : 32-34 294 

11 : 40 241-254 

12 : 17 io8 



TEXT PAGE 

13 : 8 II, 67 

13 : 20, 21 340 

JAMES 

1:2 291 

3 : 12 97 

I JOHN 

2 : 14 153 

REVELATION 

3 : 20 211 

13 : 10 267 

14 : 13 309 

22 : 17 47 



NOl' 6 1903 



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